


The Right Way Up

by miserylovedme



Category: Bandom
Genre: I'm Sorry, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 22:08:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4322595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miserylovedme/pseuds/miserylovedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Two blue lines means what?”</p>
<p>“Positive!” Patrick yells, turning in a circle, gripping his hair and looking back at Pete, good old-fashioned terror etched into his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Way Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leere/gifts).



> I once used to write in bandom on lj under the name miserylovedme. The decision to delete my livejournal was a personal one and I apologize that it had the unfortunate side effect of upsetting people. I haven't been in bandom since 2008 and I didn't expect it to even be noticed, let alone the outcry that followed. I had no intention of reposting this story at all, so thank you to the people who cared enough to contact me and ask for it. I appreciate the continued support, even though I have long since left the fandom.
> 
> If you see this (or any of my works) posted elsewhere, please let me know. I have never given permission for my writing to be reposted.
> 
> Nothing has been edited since this work was originally posted, so please forgive any errors or potential grammar mistakes. If you used to read me back there, hello, again!
> 
>  
> 
> Original post date: 5.21.08

Pete is barely awake when it starts.

Patrick has his head resting on his shoulder, breathing softly and pleasantly warm against him. Pete is letting memories of their last night on tour float through his head, making his eyelids flutter and just enjoying the quiet of the house. It’s still too dark for much activity from animals outside and Hemmy is curled up on his couch out in the living room.

Pete has barely even registered Patrick breaking out into a cold sweat and his breathing increasing when he bolts upright, looks around for a moment and then practically falls out of bed before scampering into the bathroom.

Pete listens to him retch for about twenty seconds of disoriented shock before he’s flipping the covers back and stumbling after him.

Patrick is on his knees, bent over the toilet and shaking as he expels everything he’d eaten and drank in celebration of the tour ending the night before.

A whimpering groan of agony between waves of nausea has Pete grabbing a washcloth off the sink and running it under cold water before bending down over him and pressing it to his forehead, the back of his neck and rubbing his shoulder. He mumbles half-awake, but fully-meant, words of sympathy.

It takes Patrick several more dry-heaves and a barely muttered curse before he’s able to sit back and then right himself with Pete’s help. He insists on brushing his teeth before returning to bed, so Pete lets him, standing behind him and gently rubbing at his stomach after brushing his own teeth and then helping Patrick back to bed.

They curl back up, Patrick clinging just a little tighter than when they’d collapsed the night before.

 

\--

 

It’s only a week later that Patrick begins complaining of, what he describes as, fairly-severe backaches. Pete tries to rub them away after the first few set in but finally gives in and calls Andy.

Strange as it seems, Andy tends to give the best backrubs of anyone Pete has ever known. The first call goes right to voicemail but the second is answered, Andy’s voice thick and slightly perturbed at having been woken up.

“Do you have any idea how early it is right now?”

“No.”

Andy sighs and Pete vaguely glances at the clock which in the darkness glares back at him. It’s after five am. Andy needs to stop being so lazy.

Pete can tell he’s sitting up the way he does when he clearly doesn’t want to but it’s required of him if he’s going to stay awake for the conversation he’s about to have, rubbing his eyes and retrieving his glasses from the nightstand; hears the click of the bedside light. “What’s going on?”

“Patrick’s sick,” Pete supplies.

Andy sighs again. “With what?”

“I don’t know, he keeps throwing up and his back is killing him.”

There’s enough silence for Pete to open the refrigerator and look around, chew off an offending thumbnail and briefly consider loading the dishwasher before Andy responds. “What exactly would you like me to do, Pete?”

“Come rub his back?” Pete asks quietly. Another sigh. “Look if you don’t want to--”

“Shut up,” Andy interrupts. Pete goes quiet, listening to Hemmy whine in his sleep as he waits. “It’s really that bad?”

Pete figures Andy should know the answer to that already and doesn’t spare him the details of Patrick cutting off tears of pain and letting Pete roll him onto his stomach so he could place a heating pad over his back before getting up to call Andy. “It’s really that bad.”

Andy concedes. “All right, let me just get changed out of my unmentionables and I’ll be over.”

Pete is just beginning to thank him when he hears Patrick throwing up again. He drops his phone on the counter and makes a break for the bedroom.

 

\--

 

As it turns out, Andy’s ‘unmentionables’ are the same thing he’s worn to bed ever since Pete has known him, and what he shows up in.

“Mine eyes!” Pete declares, holding up a hand in front of his face.

Plaid pajama bottoms, a To Write Love on Her Arms shirt and his _Scooby-Doo_ slippers.

Andy just rolls his eyes and steps in. It isn’t until they’re in the still-dark kitchen that Andy reaches out with one arm and pulls Pete in just slightly. That’s all Pete has really ever needed to sink in with both arms and drop his head into Andy’s neck as he breathes a little unsteadily.

“What’s really going on, Pete?” he asks quietly, unmoving as Pete finally pulls away.

“I don’t know,” Pete shrugs, “he just woke up sick one morning and it hasn’t gone away. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to take him to the hospital soon. He hasn’t eaten in the past like two days; I don’t know what the hell he’s throwing up.”

The worry staining Pete’s voice and stature makes Andy just inhale deeply before taking the initiative and heading down towards Pete’s bedroom.

Patrick is lying on his stomach where Pete left him, breathing unevenly into the pillow and blinking slowly. He doesn’t move when he hears the sound of Pete re-entering the bedroom and the extra set of footsteps that accompanies him. He doesn’t question; he doesn’t care.

Pete waits for Andy to reach out and rub the back of Patrick’s neck to get him to focus before he seats himself at the far edge of his side of the bed.

“Back ache?” Andy asks sounding tired. Pete tries to feel guilty, but this is Patrick. _Patrick_. And there’s just nothing Pete wouldn’t do for him, so he gives it up fairly easily and watches as Patrick nods and Andy pulls the heating pad off of his back and climbs onto the bed to straddle Patrick’s thighs.

 

\--

 

Forty minutes and half a jar of Tiger Balm later and Patrick is asleep, breathing deeply and unmoving.

Andy eases himself off and into the bathroom, closing the door but not shutting it as he stands over the sink and begins ruthlessly scrubbing at his hands.

Pete enters a moment later, rubbing a hand over his face and sliding himself onto the counter. Neither of them say anything as Andy scours away on his fingers and palms. The smell of the muscle rubbing salve is so strong it clears Pete’s sinuses and makes his eyes water. He looks away as if it will help and waits for Andy’s amateur opinion before looking back.

“How long has he been throwing up?”

Pete thinks back until he remembers the exact date to answer. “Morning after the tour ended; eight days ago.”

Andy is silent, leaning back against the counter and picking up Pete’s hand towel to rub at his water-wrinkled skin. “All day?”

Pete shakes his head, reaching up to press at his temple, feeling the impending build-up, his head too full, knowing that a migraine is just lurking beneath the surface. He’ll be lucky if this one doesn’t make his face explode later. “Just in the morning.”

“He stopped eating?”

“Two days ago,” Pete confirms.

Andy looks back at his hands before hanging the towel back up and pursing his lips in thought, staring at the edge of Pete’s bathtub where their entire band looks back in action figure form. He almost has it in him to roll his eyes at the fact that the mini Pete and Patrick are laying one on top of the other while he and Joe’s forms remain standing further back.

“I’m gonna stay here tonight.”

 

\--

 

Pete awakes to an empty bed. The moment it registers that Patrick isn’t lying beside him he staggers up from the body-warm sheets and nearly falls into the bathroom. But Patrick isn’t in there either.

He pads quietly out into the living room only to find Andy seated on the couch and Patrick with his head in his lap. Pete’s face contorts at the image; an initial flaring of jealousy tearing around his stomach before he forces himself to drop down near-silently into the closest chair.

Andy looks up at him and mouths a greeting, fingers gently rubbing at Patrick’s shoulder.

Pete doesn’t respond, just lowers his gaze to Patrick’s seemingly peaceful form and tries not to bite his lip. Andy waits for him to look back up. He’s known Pete for far too long at this point to not call him on his bullshit. He whispers Pete’s name. Then a simple, “Don’t.”

Pete stands and heads for the kitchen.

 

\--

Patrick awakes on the couch alone, covered in a white blanket with Hemmy asleep on his feet. They’re starting to sweat. He dislodges the dead-weight bulldog that huffs at him before moving to rest his head on the armrest and closes his eyes again. Patrick sits up carefully, feeling the dull reminder of agony his back had gone through the night before pulsing gently along his spine.

Andy and Pete are standing in the kitchen and both watch him approach.

Pete is sitting on the counter while Andy leans against the opposing one, each holding a cup of coffee.

Patrick comes to stand next to Pete’s dangling legs but Pete spreads them and pulls Patrick in so the side of his face is pressed to Pete’s chest and Pete’s arm rests over his shoulders. A gentle kiss is pressed into Patrick’s fine hair and he reaches up unconsciously to brush a hand over it. Pete just tangles their fingers together.

“Where’s mine?” he mumbles into Pete’s t-shirt after a minute of silence.

Pete looks over at Andy who merely returns the look steadily. Pete tilts Patrick’s head back so he can meet his eyes. “You feel sick at all?”

Patrick shakes his head slowly. “Not yet at least,” he amends in a slight grumble. Pete hands him his mug and then turns him around so he can rub his shoulders. “Thanks for coming over last night,” Patrick says, relaxing back into Pete as much as he can with the counter digging into his back.

Andy shrugs. “What are drummers for?”

“Drumming,” Pete says absently, running his fingers up into Patrick’s hair. He reaches back and swats them away.

“Not what you said last night.” Andy almost glares, reaching under his glasses to rub at his eyes as he yawns. “So am I still of great need here or can I take off?”

Patrick and Pete both look mildly offended. “What’s better than hanging out with us?” Pete asks, taking his coffee back briefly for a sip before handing it back to Patrick.

“Not catching whatever he’s got.”

Pete scoffs. “Just leave me here to get ill then.”

”Your boyfriend. Your germs.” Andy holds his free hand out and a Zen look graces his face before he bows his head and places his cup in the sink and snags his car keys off the counter. He pulls Patrick in for a quick hug before patting Pete’s thigh and pocketing his cell phone with one last look at the screen. “Call me though, if you need me.”

 

\--

 

And Andy is nothing if not loyal.

He shows back up two days later when Patrick has another set of backaches that leave him laid out on the living room floor with Hemmy asleep at his side.

Pete asks Andy if he thinks he should take him to the hospital.

Andy slaps the side of his head and tells him he should have days ago.

 

\--

 

Patrick refuses to go anywhere with Pete, let alone to the hospital, when Pete gently broaches the subject with him.

“I just have the flu, Pete, I’ll be fine in like a week,” he grumbles, looking back down into the book he has in his hand.

Pete sits down on the low-laying coffee table in front of him and takes it gently from his hands. Patrick snatches it back. “’Trick-”

“Don’t ‘Trick me,” he snaps, throwing the book down beside him on the couch and glaring at Pete. “You’ve been hovering over me for the past week and a half like I’m fucking dying or something. I’m just sick, Pete. Go breathe down someone else’s neck for a few hours and leave me the hell alone!”

Pete doesn’t follow him when he storms off into the bedroom.

 

\--

 

By the end of the week they’re still not speaking. Pete has sealed himself inside the theater room for most of the day until late in the night when he’ll crawl into bed beside Patrick, only to get up in the early afternoon and do it all again the next day.

“Why don’t you just tell him you’re sorry?” Joe suggests via Xbox 360 headset as the two play against the computer from across the country in a fierce _Halo III_ battle.

“Because I didn’t fucking _do_ anything this time,” Pete growls.

Joe says nothing, only cursing life when his character is taken down for the third time in a row.

It’s some time later before Joe continues. “Patrick doesn’t usually snap like that for no reason.”

“Well he did this time.”

They lose the round.

Pete sits back in the chair, smacking his wireless controller against his thigh and rubbing at his eyes.

“He’s allowed to have a bad day once in a while,” Joe says, sounding suddenly sleepier. Pete rolls his eyes. Smoking up before, during and after a round of _Halo_ doesn’t exactly put his video game partner at his best. He says nothing. “I’m just saying, is all.”

“I know, Joe,” Pete sighs. His stomach is tense and he just wants to be able to lie down and curl himself over Patrick’s back for a few hours. He hardly sleeps at all as it is but with having to sneak into his own bed lately—since Patrick won’t vacate for the guest room—he’s getting less than ever. “I’m gonna go get in the hot tub,” he finally decides, sitting up, “I’ll catch you later.”

Joe barely has time to say goodbye before Pete’s turning off the system and heading upstairs.

Patrick is asleep on Pete’s side of the bed when he enters the room to get his swim trunks. He stands in the doorway watching for a moment the way Patrick’s fingers have curled themselves into Pete’s pillowcase and how his back rises and falls slowly with his breathing at ease.

Pete leaves without getting what he came for and strips himself naked before climbing into the hot tub.

 

\--

 

Patrick hands him a towel when he walks back into the house carrying his clothes, dripping water all over the floor as he goes.

Pete takes it without a word and watches how Patrick slumps in on himself when Pete locks himself in the bedroom to get changed.

When he emerges it takes him a few minutes to find him in the laundry room, tossing Pete’s wet clothes into the washer along with some of his own clothing of similar color while biting his lip. Pete’s known Patrick long enough to know what Patrick looks like when he’s trying not to cry.

The fighting bullshit has gone on long enough. Pete molds himself to Patrick’s back on the spot, dipping his head to press a series of kisses against his pulse and up to his ear where he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

The lid on the washer slams and Patrick twists in Pete’s grasp, pulling him in and down until their mouths are crushed together and Pete has to brace himself with a hand against the cold metal behind them to keep from falling over.

Patrick never apologizes. Pete forgives him anyway.

 

\--

 

Patrick’s vomiting has eased up to nearly non-existent as has most of the back pain but in their place comes a sudden ravenous appetite that has set in seemingly overnight.

It doesn’t surprise Pete in the slightest when Patrick snaps at him again when Pete asks him why he’s eating again so soon after they’d returned home from dining out.

Of course Patrick is over-reacting again but this time Pete just leaves instead of fighting.

He calls Andy from the 605 as he drives aimlessly.

“Go home,” Andy tells him.

Pete sighs and rubs his forehead with the hand not holding his phone. Who needs hands to drive anyway?

“Andy-”

“No, Pete. Just go home. He needs you right now.”

“Which is why he keeps PMSing on my ass all the time.”

He practically hears Andy’s eyes roll in their sockets. “He sounds depressed. I think you of all people would be sympathetic to that.” Pete suddenly feels like he’s taken a knee to the stomach. Breathing is harder than it should be and he grips the steering wheel tight enough to make his knuckles ache.

Leave it to Andy to tell it like it is.

“You really think…” Pete trails off.

“Think about it Pete.” Andy voice contains less and less of a bite as he continues, “He sleeps all the time, eats a lot, he’s pissy, throwing up and his back hurts. What does that sound like to you?”

When Pete thinks of the fact that he is now eating everything in sight as well he nearly whispers, “Pregnant.”

“What?” Andy asks.

So much for _nearly_ whispering it.

“Nothing. He’s just, I don’t know, I don’t want him—” he cuts himself off and swallows hard, taking the next exit to turn around and head home. “I don’t want him to be like me.”

Andy is silent and Pete has merged back into traffic before he speaks again. “Then help him.”

Pete vehemently thinks _I will_.

 

\--

 

Pete lives in remote fear of actually talking to Patrick about his possible depression for another day before watching Patrick tear through a bag of Doritos and half a gallon of ice cream and then cry, _cry_ in the bathroom about how fat he’s getting [Patrick’s words, not Pete’s].

“Patrick, come on, you’re not fat.” Pete’s standing outside the door, hand on the frame and forehead against his hand.

“Just leave me alone, Pete.” Patrick’s response is weak enough to make Pete open his eyes again.

Pete thinks back on the last night of the tour, the last time they had sex. How Patrick had arched beneath him, so beautiful and perfect and sweaty and raw; real and there and _Pete’s_. And just drunk enough later to be coaxed into straddling Pete’s hips and riding him until they both came again. Lights on. He feels a stirring in his jeans and reaches down to adjust himself, trying not to think about how patient he’s been waiting for Patrick to feel better before even mentioning sex. It’s been just over three weeks at this point.

“Patrick, babe, seriously,” Pete tries again. “You’re perfect, I love how you feel and I love your tummy.” Pete purrs the last with just a slight hint of happy in his voice, the way that usually is all it takes get Patrick malleable enough to let Pete kiss and stroke his stomach and smile about it.

This time it has Patrick wrenching the bathroom door open, glaring angrily. Pete stumbles back in shock, heart leaping to his throat. “Jesus, Patrick–”

“Don’t fucking call it that,” Patrick snaps, tears still drying on his cheeks and his eyes red. “I don’t need you taunting me about my stomach and I don’t need you being a condescending asshole about my weight.”

The door slams shut again and Pete finally snaps.

“Well maybe I just shouldn’t be around to fucking taunt you anymore then, since I’m such a fucking _asshole_!”

Pete ignores the fact that it’s _his_ house and stomps over to throw open the closet, yanking down a couple shirts with one hand and a backpack from the shelf above with the other. He’ll take his dog and just go stay with Andy for a while. Because seriously? Fuck. This.

He doesn’t even register Patrick frantically grabbing things away from him and pressing him back into the closed half of the closet doors and burrowing into his chest until he feels hot tears leaking into his shirt just over his sternum.

“Don’t, _don’t_.” Patrick is practically sobbing, which is more than enough to make Pete want to hit the panic button; Patrick never cries like this. “Please, I’m sorry, God, I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.” He sounds just desperate enough to make Pete feel this side of guilty as well.

“You’re killing me here,” he finally rasps out, much quieter than he’d intended as he pulls Patrick’s quaking form closer around the shoulders and burying one hand in his hair as he pushes his hat off. He breathes in deeply the scent of his shampoo. “I can’t do this anymore, Patrick–”

Patrick cuts him off before he can even finish his thought, “Don’t leave. Don’t leave me.”

 

\--

 

By the time Pete gets Patrick to stop crying and hangs his clothes back up, he really doesn’t want to have the depression talk. 

But he does.

Patrick sniffs but doesn’t cry again, just angles his body into Pete’s. Pete would never actually leave Patrick; he can’t imagine a situation, _anything_ that would make him honestly pack up Patrick’s shit and tell him to get out. Not only would it be the end of the band but it would be the end of Pete.

Neither are acceptable so they talk about it until Pete feels slightly better and Patrick feels slightly less like he’s all out losing his mind.

 

\--

 

Patrick really, honestly and truthfully, does not know what’s wrong with him.

He feels guilty for making Pete suffer right along with him; and while the selfish part of his brain keeps pointing out that Pete is both his best friend and his boyfriend of the past three years and by default is designed to suffer with him, the not-so-selfish part of his brain keeps unhelpfully suggesting that he needs to suck it up and be normal for Pete as well as himself.

He doesn’t know if he can do that but for Pete? He’s willing to try.

 

\--

 

It’s Andy, with all his crazy vegan propaganda that finally convinces Pete that Patrick is a miracle of life and a freak of nature.

Pete doesn’t really buy it entirely, because seriously, who could? But something inside him is able to piece things together as Andy explains them over the phone far too early one afternoon enough to where he actually believes it enough to get himself in his car.

He only second-guesses himself for the eighty-ninth time when he’s standing in Walgreens with his hood over his head and his sunglasses shielding his face, staring at the rows of pregnancy tests.

He has no idea at all which test to get. He bites his lip and glances towards the female associate that looks younger than Patrick stocking baby diapers just down the aisle. He can feel himself pale. He doesn’t ever want to have to be buying those. He debates a moment as to whether or not he should ask her for her help; she looks too young to know what she’d be talking about so he decides against it and just grabs three different brands in one go. A fourth is snatched up as an afterthought and he speed-walks himself to the counter.

 

\--

 

Pete can’t bring himself to go home right away so he goes through a drive-through for a drink, and drives around for a while; which leads to him stopping to get gas, browsing around the convenience store and getting two huge cans of Red Bull, going to the bank to check his checking account funds—not that he had ever had to do that in the past few years—before stopping to get sandwiches for himself and Patrick.

He is prepared to stall himself longer but he knows that their sandwiches will get soggy if he doesn’t head back soon. So he does, driving a lot more slowly than he normally would though.

 

\--

 

Patrick is on the back deck, leaning against the railing and looking out over the hills and homes beyond when Pete comes in with a faux smile and holding the food bag triumphantly up and out. 

Patrick actually grins as he steps back inside.

“I hath returned from the hunt,” Pete tells him seriously.

Patrick fits himself into Pete’s arms and leans up for a kiss before breaking apart to get them drinks. Pete stops him with a coo of, “Red Bull.”

Patrick winkles up his nose. “I might barf if I drink that right now.”

Pete successfully swallows bile in time to nod and head for the table.

They eat in relative silence. Pete isn’t the least bit hungry anymore—never was to begin with—but he eats anyway to give his mouth something to do besides spill out a garbled confession and sending Patrick fleeing back across the country to stay with Joe. 

By the time Patrick is done and staring at his blank face from across the table Pete has relived their most horrendous fight, the one that actually _did_ end in Patrick flying back to live with his mom for two weeks before Pete had been able to coax him back, and invented several new conversations and arguments that haven’t even happened yet; watched them all play out in his mind. Patrick leaving him. Patrick wanting to get married and _then_ leaving him because Pete didn’t want to. Patrick throwing him off the roof. Patrick scheduling Pete a vasectomy, and best of all, Patrick castrating him.

Pete shudders and blinks away the thoughts, a hand going to his crotch under the table as if to reassure himself that that horrible thought was just a thought.

His dick is still there.

“What’s wrong, Pete?” Patrick asks, getting up to throw their trash away, taking Pete’s empty Red Bull can along with him.

Pete watches him walk away a little before responding. “I think… I gotta talk to you.”

Patrick stills. “You’re talking to me right now,” he says quietly, tentative and too careful like he’s afraid of what might come next and not wanting to show it.

Pete pushes himself away from the table and heads for the front door where he left the Walgreens bag. Patrick follows like an attached puppy.

“Pete?”

It physically causes Pete’s chest to ache to not stop, to not tell him to just follow him, trust him, just let him do this. But he’s afraid. If he says the wrong thing, it’s jet set for Patrick and they’ll be dividing the country in a contested division of assets and a custody battle over their dogs while putting the kids [see also: Joe and Andy] in the middle of it.

_Bullshit_ , his brain informs him. And he knows it. Patrick just wouldn’t do that. He might go back to Chicago at the most, but he’d come back. They just don’t breakup forever; they’re _PeteandPatrick_.

Patrick finally grabs hold of his elbow once they’ve made it over the threshold of the bedroom. “Pete, seriously, you’re freaking me out.”

And that’s really the last thing Pete wants. Well, almost as much as he just wants them to be okay. Doesn’t he fucking deserve that?

He sets the bag down on the bed and takes Patrick’s shoulders and attention.

“Do you trust me?”

Patrick stares.

“What the fuck kind of question is that? Of _course_ I—Pete what the _fuck_?”

And all right, Patrick has a point. But still…

“Okay, yeah, stupid question, but ‘Trick, seriously, I… Just come in here.” He tugs Patrick forward.

“To the bathroom?” Patrick sounds somewhere between disgusted and confused.

Pete doesn’t blame him, just closes the toilet lid and pushes him down onto it. “Just, wait. There.” Pete returns a moment later with the bag and sets it down in the sink furthest from Patrick and finally Patrick sighs.

“What’s with the bag?”

Pete looks nervously between Patrick, the sink and his own sweaty hands braced on his thighs. “’Trick, I… Patrick I seriously don’t know what’s going on anymore.” Patrick looks at him, confused and more than a little worried. “Something’s wrong with you and you won’t let me take you to the hospital and I mean, I’m grabbing at straws here and I just—I’m desperate, I want to… just look, Andy and I were talking and—”

“Grasping,” Patrick says quietly, interrupting Pete’s nearing-breathless rant.

Pete looks at him, confused. “What?”

“Grasping at straws. You said ‘grabbing’.”

They’re silent a moment before Pete bursts out in nervous laughter. “Thanks so much,” he finally chokes out, feeling a little less tense than he had a minute ago, but not much. This is still the most life-and-death, do-or-die, deal-or-no-deal situation he’s ever been in. And for Pete Wentz? That’s saying something; that’s _really_ saying something.

“Just, come on, Pete.”

Pete knows Patrick’s exasperated tone better than practically anyone. Time to just spit it out, he supposes.

“I think you’re pregnant.”

 

\--

 

The silence that follows Pete’s declaration is so thick Pete feels like he’s suffocating in the situation he’s set himself up in. Patrick’s eyes are wide and unmoving until he blinks and then suddenly he’s laughing.

So hard, in fact, that he has to brace himself on the counter to keep from falling right over. He laughs and laughs and fucking _laughs_ until Pete is a little afraid that Patrick’s finally snapped under all the pressure Pete has placed on his un-yielding shoulders and he’s going to end up having to call the nut house to come drag his Patrick off in a straight jacket, laughing the whole way.

Finally though, he manages to stand, his knees shaky and wiping at his damp eyes.

“Pete, you asshole.” He laughs again. “Fuck you, dude, seriously. If I’ve grown a vagina lately and you’ve failed to tell me about it then you really are the worst boyfriend ever in life.” He laughs again, weakly, holding his side and shaking his head.

But Pete isn’t laughing; he’s got an awkward half-smile on his face, but he isn’t laughing.

Patrick stares. “You’re fucking serious,” he finally says in the most disbelieving tone he can muster. “Pete, _seriously_? Are you for fucking real right now?”

All Pete can do is manage a shrug and try to explain, “Look, Andy was telling me you know, sometimes people are born with—”

“Pete, _listen_ to yourself!” Patrick snaps, grabbing one of Pete’s arms and shaking him. “I’m a man. A guy. With a dick. A fully functioning dick. That you like to suck. I _can’t_ physically carry a child. I have no ovaries or uterus, Pete. Those tend to be helpful when conceiving and carrying a child.”

Pete just tries again, “Andy said–” 

“Andy, what the hell is this all about Andy? What does he know about it? Because he went to osteopathic school while we weren’t looking?”

Well, Pete really can’t argue with that, but, “He made it make sense when he explained it.”

Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose. He hasn’t thrown up in a few days but he thinks this conversation just might be hurting his brain enough to bring it all back to him. “Pete, please…” he sighs, shaking his head. “Stop listening to Andy.”

Pete tosses his arms up in a helpless, desperate gesture. “Fine, okay, I’m cracked, Andy’s cracked; we’re all nice and insane and I can write a whole shit-ton of TRL-topping hits about this later, but just, do this for me.”

“Do _what_?” Patrick asks.

The question is answered when Pete reaches into the sink and dumps out the pregnancy tests. Patrick’s eyes snap to his. “Are you fucking _kidding_ me with this Pete?”

“Just _do_ it.”

“No!” Patrick snaps, tugs his hand back and moves to push Pete out of the doorway. Pete blocks him.

“Patrick–”

Patrick practically stomps his foot. “ _No_ , Pete! It’s not my fault you’ve lost your goddamn mind; I will _not_ help by feeding your deluded brain.”

Silence settles over them again and finally Pete lets Patrick leave without looking at him.

 

\--

 

Pete spends the rest of the day lying on the lounge just outside the sliding glass doors, staring through the hazy sky and impending rain clouds.

He falls asleep when Hemmy, apparently the first dog ever with opposable thumbs, gets the door open and comes to hop up next to him.

 

\--

 

Pete is awakened by the sound of the sliding glass door slamming open so hard it almost cuts Patrick in half on the rebound as he stumbles out onto the deck looking panicked.

He sits up, knocking Hemmy off onto the ground. His poor dog; he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t end up running away to find another daddy. One that will love him and play with him all day and not throw him on the floor in the middle of the night.

Pete blinks hard, noticing that it’s pitch black outside but nearly every light in the house is on and shining out on them. Penny is standing just inside the doors looking out, worriedly—Pete assumes anyway. He holds up a hand to block what he can. “Patrick, what—”

“It’s positive,” Patrick spews out frantically.

“What—”

“The fucking test. It’s fucking positive.”

Things click into place pretty fast from there and he almost crushes his poor Hemingway under him when he staggers to his feet and grabs the test—only slightly disgusting, but considering what all of Patrick’s he’s touched before, not so bad—from Patrick and looks at it.

“Two blue lines means what?”

“Positive!” Patrick yells, turning in a circle, gripping his hair and looking back at Pete, good old-fashioned terror etched into his face.

Pete just blinks. “Well… it’s just one, ‘Trick, I mean—”

“I took all four.”

Pete looks up, in what feels like slow-motion to him, and feels like far too fucking long to Patrick, “All four?” Patrick nods.

Pete has the good grace to sit down before he does something embarrassing, like pass out.

“ _Pete_!” Patrick is still clutching his head, pulling on his too-weak strands of hair. Pete looks up at him, barely focusing. “What the fuck are we gonna do?”

Pete stares at him, at Patrick, _his_ Patrick. Best friend of six years and boyfriend of three. Lead singer of a world-touring, chart-topping, award-winning, universally famous band. His confidant, his damn-near therapist; the one person he trusts with everything, his words, his heart, his well-being and life. His young, young twenty-four year old _pregnant_ boyfriend.

He very nearly throws up before he manages to stand and pull Patrick into a hug that is completely desperate on both their parts. He knows this is the one time he absolutely has to make things okay for Patrick; he _has_ to. But all he can force out of his dry, dry mouth and over his swollen tongue into Patrick’s hair is a quiet, “We’ll be okay.”

And tries to believe it.

 

\--

 

They don’t tell anyone right away. _Anyone_. Not even Andy, whose idea this was from the beginning.

Patrick goes through the range of emotions a dying man would. Even after his initial confession to Pete about taking the pregnancy tests when he wakes up the next morning to throw up again he shoves Pete away from him and tells him that nothing’s wrong. He’s fine, he’s not pregnant, just sick. Deny, deny, deny.

It lasts for days, Patrick refusing to accept his own admission of the truth. He tugs his shirts on just the same way he’s done for years, even though he has a harder time with them since they’re fitting snugger around the stomach. He tells himself he’s just putting on weight and needs to stop eating.

Which he does.

Which is when Pete calls Andy and tells him.

Andy comes over, Pete and Patrick fight a brutally verbal battle, Patrick locks himself in the bedroom for four hours and only comes out once Pete has apologized and they’ve briefly made out on the bed together.

To his credit, Andy doesn’t look the least bit smug about his strange assumption of Patrick being with child, which Pete finds amazing and Patrick finds suspicious. He even considers that Andy has done something to him for all of ten seconds until Andy orders Chinese food and a pizza and convinces Patrick that he needs to eat.

Afterwards Pete falls asleep sitting up on the couch with Patrick’s head buried in his stomach. Andy covers Patrick up, feeds Hemmy and Penny—poor dogs—and lets himself out.

 

\--

 

Anger hits Patrick like a freight train soon after.

They’ve been doing fine for a week and a half after the initial passing of denial, Patrick’s even begun letting Pete touch him again. They’re kissing in bed one night, on their sides, Patrick with his hands around Pete’s neck tangled in his hair, when Pete dips his hand down Patrick’s side and brushes over the swell of his stomach. It wasn’t even intentional but Patrick shoves Pete away from him almost hard enough to knock him out of bed.

They fight and fight and _fight_ until Pete threatens to find Patrick an OBGYN and Patrick seals himself inside the bathroom. Pete can hear him sniff just once through the silence left behind and he presses himself against the bathroom door, just listening, not knowing what to say or do.

He finally draws the conclusion that this just isn’t meant to happen, he can’t do this, Patrick can’t do this. They’re men, _young_ men, not ready for this kind of responsibility and why the fuck hadn’t they just used condoms?

_Because_ , a voice springs to life in Pete’s head to helpfully point out, _he was a virgin when you got a hold of him. He never needed them. Still doesn’t. But you might_. Pete grasps his hair before rubbing fiercely at his temples. Patrick knows; it was just the one time that Pete fucked up. He never caught anything from it. Patrick refused to take him back until Pete had himself tested, which he readily did.

Forgiven and forgotten, he thinks.

_Dirty, dirty, dirty_ , the voice in his head chants.

Pete grabs his iPod from the nightstand and heads out to sleep in the guest room. He never said he was perfect, but he knows his single-shot infidelity over two years ago has nothing to do with the fact that his boyfriend is pregnant.

It doesn’t even make sense, but the thought continues to mill around his head until he falls into an uneasy sleep on top of the covers, listening to some indie rock band or another.

 

\--

 

Pete wakes up at some point in the night, feeling the mattress shift and dip as new weight is added and vaguely recognizes a warm, curled up body pressing against his side that smells like Patrick. The arm around the comfortable body beside him is completely involuntary and he doesn’t remove it when he wakes up the next morning, thinking back on the night before.

He tightens it, shifts onto his side and falls back asleep with his cheek smushed against the top of Patrick’s head.

 

\--

 

As far as Pete can tell Patrick skips the next step.

Which, as far as he’s concerned, is a good thing. Otherwise he’d be worried that Patrick was dying instead of preparing to incubate their child for the next… however many months it takes a man to have a baby.

 

\--

 

One day, soon after, Joe randomly shows up at Pete’s house, eyeing Patrick’s stomach skeptically when he walks inside. Patrick throws his Wii-mote across the room and storms off upstairs.

Pete has him explain that he got a call from Andy and the rest is proverbial history. 

“Had to see it for myself,” Joe tells him, not looking at Pete and instead focusing on the dent in the plaster that Patrick had created with the force of his throw mere minutes earlier.

Pete stares at him until Joe finally returns the look.

“He’s not a freak show,” Pete tells him calmly with just a hint of understanding for Joe’s curiosity and a streak of vehement protection for Patrick.

“No, dude… don’t even say shit like that. I _know_ that.” Joe goes on the defensive, gesturing with his hands as he explains. “It’s just—it’s fuckin’ weird, you know?” Pete says nothing. He knows; he _fucking_ knows. “I mean, I knew you two like… well, I mean, I figured you weren’t just—” he continues to gesture uselessly, looking back at the mark on the wall and then finally back at Pete, “playing with those action figures you have in your bathtub together.”

Pete can’t help himself, he laughs. Loudly.

Joe cracks a smile. “It’s just weird that I know now for sure which of the two of you…” he trails off looking slightly ill, “ _takes it_.”

Pete smacks the side of Joe’s head and they set off to find and destroy Patrick’s plans for revenge against Andy.

 

\--

 

Patrick just wants Andy and Joe to keep their mouths shut on the issue and he blames Pete for the fact that they both know.

Pete brings his attention to the fact that Andy was the one who told Joe. Patrick points out that Joe wouldn’t know if Pete hadn’t told Andy.

“Have you never heard the saying ‘the only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead’?”

Pete looks at him incredulously. “They’re _Joe_ and _Andy_ ,” Pete emphasizes.

“Point,” Patrick sighs, sitting down on Hemmy’s couch, earning him a distrustful look from the bulldog currently rolling around on the floor with his rawhide bone. Hemmy gives him a pass, though, and continues gnawing away.

Pete stands over him, reaching down to tuck a too-long strand of hair up under Patrick’s hat and back behind his ear. Patrick looks up and then leans back when Pete kneels on the couch, bringing himself down on Patrick’s lap, slowly. He laces his fingers behind Patrick’s neck and leans in for a kiss while Patrick traces his hands up Pete’s thighs to his hips.

“They won’t tell anyone,” Pete assures him when he pulls back, slightly breathless. “I already talked to them about it. They’re not stupid, they know what we’re dealing with here.”

“I wish _I_ did,” Patrick sighs and Pete leans back in; their noses brush and then they’re kissing again.

“I’ve been looking shit up online,” Pete begins.

“You too?”

Pete rolls his eyes and drops his hands to rub at Patrick’s forearms as he speaks. “You can’t be more than two months right now.” Patrick doesn’t agree but he doesn’t disagree either so Pete takes it for what it is and keeps talking. “We have a little while, before we _have_ to take you to a doctor. We can find one, out of state, out of the country, whatever. There has to be one fucking surgeon on the planet who can keep his mouth shut.”

“Surgeon?” Patrick asks, pulling his head back.

“To remove the baby when you go into labor?” Pete asks, unsure which part of this Patrick isn’t understanding.

“Okay, see, now you’re freaking me out.”

Pete pins Patrick back by the shoulders and tightens the grip his thighs have. “Don’t panic,” Pete says far too calmly. This is definitely a situation where Patrick should be the calm one and Pete should be freaking the fuck out. But Patrick’s been brave for him all these years, it’s his turn and he knows it. He pets the side of Patrick’s head and continues, “Andy and I are gonna find you a doctor, we’ll go somewhere, _anywhere_ , the kid’ll be fine, you’ll be fine.” He shrugs weakly. “We’re just— everything’s gonna be fine. Good even.”

Patrick closes his eyes and Pete waits patiently for him to arrange his thoughts and when he opens them again, tears are sparkling brightly back at him. Pete immediately brings his thumbs up to wipe away any rogue drops that make it past Patrick’s stony resolve; planting them on his cheekbones.

Patrick laughs, sounding more than a little hysterical and he reaches up to take off his glasses and push Pete’s hands away; instead pinching at the bridge of his nose and wiping his face dry himself. Pete slumps a little in his lap.

“I’m scared, Pete,” Patrick finally chokes out, still rubbing at his eyes and Pete just knows he’s crying and doesn’t want Pete to know. But how, after all this time, Patrick thinks Pete couldn’t recognize the signs, the defensive hunch of his shoulders, his tense breathing, the pale, pale skin of his face blooming pink and splotchy, he has no idea.

“Patrick,” Pete says, reaching up to take the hand Patrick is still scrubbing at his eyes with away from his face and lacing their fingers together. Patrick struggles, but not much. “I’m gonna take care of you,” he whispers into the space between them.

Patrick looks, finally and Pete ignores the lip bitten to keep steady and kisses him anyway. Patrick clings. Pete clings back.

 

\--

 

Pete doesn’t fall asleep at all that night. He lays in bed with Patrick, rubbing his back and petting his hair, singing off-key to both him and, he supposes, the baby, until Patrick begins snoring softly. Pete wriggles his way slowly out from under him and takes his laptop out to the kitchen where he perches on the counter and begins looking up pregnancy articles online.

Andy is the recipient of his unfortunate four AM phone call, but hey, it’s all Andy’s fault anyway right? He deserves it as far as Pete is concerned.

“If I knocked him up back on tour—” Pete begins.

Andy groans. “You’re such a poet. Speak more to me, your sweet nothings about your unborn child.”

Pete ignores him. “The last time we had sex, that I gave it to him all night long and came in him like three times—”

Andy cuts him off with a horrified shriek of protest. “ _Goddamnit_ , Pete!”

He laughs. “Oddly enough I think I remember the exact night.”

“It wouldn’t be the last time you had sex with him, it’d be like two weeks before that or something.”

Pete stares off into the darkness around him, over the glow of his laptop. “Dude, how do you _know_ this shit?”

He can almost see Andy shrug. “Genius.”

“All right genius, then how far along is he?”

Andy is silent, thinking back. “Five, six weeks?”

Pete is quiet, backtracking on his browser, looking for what he saw earlier. He skips over the link to the first trimester articles and clicks the second. “That doesn’t really make sense though,” he mumbles.

“What doesn’t?”

Andy is too good at hearing him sometimes.

Pete sighs. “He’s not supposed to start eating his weight in pickles until the second trimester and that doesn’t start ‘til week fifteen.”

Andy is quiet again and Pete minimizes the browser, hopping down and stretching his back, groaning as he does so, heading for the fridge and his other can of Red Bull; he can hear it calling to him through its freezing cold prison.

“Pete,” Andy says.

“What?”

“He’s a guy.”

Pete cracks open the can and stares down at it, clearly missing part of the conversation. “I kinda thought that when I noticed his dick.”

Andy doesn’t respond to that. “Point being that none of this is normal. Men don’t have babies; men probably don’t have normal pregnancies either.”

The truth of that statement almost causes Pete to drop his Red Bull on the floor. Andy is so completely, dangerously right. The next step in all of this crashes into Pete with a shocking wave of certainty he hasn’t felt in a long-ass time. “I gotta find him a doctor.”

“I’m already working on that,” Andy tells him, turning his mountain back, well not quite into a molehill again, more like a rather large hill. But not a mountain anyway. “There’s a couple potentials. Guy in Montana, specializes in high-risk, premature births. Woman in Michigan, hospital has the best neonatal unit in the country. And there’s another dude down in the Cayman Islands that deserves another look, I’m thinking that's our best bet.”

Pete could cry in relief. He finds he has indeed dropped his Red Bull and is now clutching the counter as Hemmy laps up the spilled energy drink.

“I could kiss you,” Pete tells him with utter, utter sincerity.

“Yeah, that’s my fee. Don’t kiss me and we’re good.” Pete laughs weakly, closing his eyes and rubbing them hard. He feels like he’s going to be sick, but he thanks Andy again instead. 

“It’s Patrick,” Andy tells him in response.

And, yeah, Pete knows that’s enough reason for them all to do whatever they can to make this work.

\--

 

Pete waits as long as possible, knowing how hard it was for Patrick to get to sleep the night previous, before waking him up with an ear to his stomach and a finger to his lips, shushing him when Patrick questions what exactly he’s doing.

“At five weeks,” Pete tells him, “the heartbeat starts.”

Patrick stares down at him for a few long, long moments before blinking himself more fully awake and laughing lightly, tiredly. He twists a hand in Pete’s hair and pries his head up. “You can’t hear it through my stomach.”

“Are you kidding me?” Pete asks, looking up, incredulous. “I can hear anything; I’m _Pete Wentz_.”

\--

They go with the doctor from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A tall, stately woman with light golden hair and a face slightly worn by age and stress, with prominent laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. 

They pay to have her flown out to L.A. and come straight to Pete’s house. She’s greeted at the door by Pete’s lawyer, who had covered all the legal dealings with the opening of the Chicago Clandestine store, and signs confidentiality agreements before she’s even allowed inside.

She’s wearing a long black skirt and a flower print shirt with a tan jacket over top. She carries with her an old-fashioned doctor bag and a rolling suitcase which she leaves at the door. They meet at the dining room table for the first time and Pete has asked his lawyer beforehand to demand credentials, even though he trusts Andy’s opinion on the matter. He can’t be overly sure, as far as he’s concerned. This is _Patrick_.

Before she’s even introduced herself she opens her bag and pulls out a sheaf of papers and hands them to Pete’s lawyer who takes the first look, with Pete gazing over his shoulder. Patrick sits at the other end of the table staring at his sweaty hands and trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

Among the degrees from a renowned college of osteopathic medicine and several copies of published articles on high-risk pregnancy and neonatology is a copy of her specialty degree in perinatology.

Pete’s lawyer shakes her hand after he passes off the papers to Pete and she introduces herself as Doctor Lynn Gray.

But even after all of her credentials and the good vibes Pete would swear up and down about getting, it’s the fact that Patrick tells her what he knows [which isn’t all that much] with relative ease, likes and allows her to examine him while holding onto Pete’s hand is the deciding factor.

This, they both know, is the woman who will help them bring their child into the world.

 

\--

 

Pete spends all of his extra time, when he’s not rearranging the few interviews they have set up to be via phone and putting down rumors of an impending band breakup, laying around with Patrick.

He knows he should be the one sitting up on the bed or couch or wherever they happen to be at the time and Patrick should be the one with his head cradled in his lap with Pete’s hands in his hair. But old habits die hard and neither of them are really too picky about it so long as Pete rubs Patrick’s back before they go to bed at night.

Patrick is warm and complacent leaning back against the headboard with his feet up on a pillow since his ankles started to swell the previous week. Dr. Gray had flown back to Michigan, to her practice, but had so far kept both of her bi-weekly appointments in L.A., checking Patrick out in the privacy of Pete’s house. They’re watching some movie, Pete forgot which, even though he was the one who put it in for Patrick, and his eyelids are drooping.

Patrick continues to play with his hair, fingering the rough strands and twisting them together until they stand straight up on his head and then smoothing them down to start all over again. Pete smiles to himself and yawns against Patrick’s thigh, turning his head to press a kiss against Patrick’s stomach. It still doesn’t seem very big, but if someone knew what they were looking for they might just think, _wow, that man looks slightly pregnant_.

“Why don’t you take a nap?” Patrick asks, looking down from the screen to Pete’s tired face and smoothing a thumb over his lip. Pete kisses it and shakes his head. Patrick smiles softly. “I can last a couple hours on my own, I promise.”

Pete, who had just closed both of his eyes, cracks one open and looks up at him, “You want me to leave you alone for a while?”

Patrick sighs and rests his hand on Pete’s chest. “You haven’t been sleeping, is my point.”

“I never sleep.”

“I know, don’t you think you should at least try now, while you can?”

Pete can’t help but grin and reach over Patrick’s arm to rub at his belly. “Baby gonna keep us up already? You still have six months.”

“Five.” Patrick glances back at the TV and Pete sits up.

“What do you mean ‘five’? I thought it was six.” Patrick avoids his gaze and Pete snaps, “Patrick, what the hell?”

“Doctor Gray says that she thinks I’m further along than I should be.” He glances at Pete and finds he can’t look away no matter how much he wants to; Pete’s resolve to hold his gaze is stronger.

Pete sits back on his heels, taking his hand away from Patrick and staring at the open doorway where Hemmy is chasing something in his sleep and Penny is sitting up staring at him. He says nothing.

“Pete?” Patrick finally asks, timid voice sounding unnatural.

“Is there anything else I should know?” Pete finally asks, facing Patrick and looking bitter. “Any more secrets you’re holding out on? Not that you apparently have to tell me or anything. It’s only half my fucking kid.”

Pete slides back and hops off the bed. Patrick scrambles after him, careful when stepping over their dogs and padding after Pete as he heads down the stairs into the theater room.

“Pete, wait, for real.” Patrick tries as Pete picks up a PS3 controller and turns to sit down. Patrick snatches it away from him.

“I’m serious right now, Patrick. You need to go leave me alone for a while.” Pete’s voice is low and more angry than it has been, when directed at Patrick, in a long time. It makes Patrick’s throat itch and he blinks a little faster than he normally would to clear up the tears he knows will build otherwise.

Still, he holds the remote behind him and when Pete makes to grab another Patrick snatches his arm.

“’Trick, I’m serious, get off me.”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to freak out,” Patrick says rapidly, drawing Pete’s gaze. “You’re already up for your fucking knees in alligators over it, fixing shit so I don’t have to do interviews and finding me a doctor and a hospital that can keep its mouth shut and going out at all hours to get me food, figuring it all out in the first place. I just didn’t want to…” he trails off and Pete is left feeling sick to his stomach and damp in the eyes.

He clears his throat before responding to Patrick’s slumped-standing form. “You better tell me everything,” he finally says, voice cracking and Patrick looks up, biting his lip and nodding. “I’m serious, Patrick, it’s my fucking kid too and it’s not just that, it’s way more than that, it’s _you_ and I can’t fucking take care of you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

Patrick blinks and tears roll free.

Pete pulls him in; Patrick drops the controller to the floor and grips his shirt in both hands, burrowing his face into Pete’s throat.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispers. “I won’t… it won’t—”

Pete shushes him and rubs at the back of his neck, feeling Patrick breathe against him, his chest, his stomach, and thinks _that’s my kid in there_ and just closes his eyes and presses a lingering kiss to Patrick’s cheek before whispering, “You’re always protecting me and keeping me safe from shit. It’s my turn now.” Patrick nods, ready to give Pete whatever to just have this be over with.

They’re silent a while before Pete pulls back and steps slowly backwards to sit down in one of the plush leather chairs and brings Patrick down onto his lap. Patrick keeps his face hidden in Pete’s throat and Pete moves his hand to rest on Patrick’s stomach.

“Sped-up pregnancy, huh?” he asks no one in particular.

Patrick nods but says nothing.

“Great,” Pete says quietly and tilts his head back, closing his eyes.

“What have you told the fans?” Patrick asks after a while, when Pete thought he’d actually fallen asleep curled up against him as best they both could fit in the one-person chair.

Pete laughs quietly and kisses Patrick’s forehead. “We’re on a break right now to write a new cd.” Patrick pulls back hastily and eyes him. Pete grins widely. “We might want to work on some new material later if you’re up to it.”

 

\--

 

Pete is out with Andy, doing an unavoidable TV spot for MTV that is impossible to reschedule. Joe stays behind with Patrick and is doing his best to keep him occupied but over the past week or so Patrick has had an unexplainable urge to not let Pete out of his sight at all. He grumbles and complains and gives Pete complete and utter hell whenever he has to go do something. And when Pete actually doesn’t cave on the MTV ad, even though, rationally, Patrick knows it’s just something that _has_ to be done, he actually fucking _cries_ about it.

Andy just drags Pete out and leaves Joe behind to take care of a weepy, angst-ridden Patrick who does nothing but curse Pete’s name and MTV and all MTV viewers everywhere.  
He closes himself in the bedroom but Joe is slightly stoned and has absolutely no respect for another man’s privacy when he’s like he is now.

He pushes the bedroom door open with a dopey-happy smile on his face, Hemmy squirming in his arms.

“Paaaaatrick,” he drawls. Patrick rolls onto his side, facing the window, away from Joe, but Joe isn’t to be dissuaded. He practically falls onto the bed. “Someone wants to see you!”

“Jesus, Joe, don’t squish the dog,” Patrick snaps, reaching out to pry Hemmy away from Joe.

Joe makes grabby hands and tries to take the bulldog back into his oh-so-loving grasp, but fails and falls back on Pete’s pillow laughing lightly and smiling up at the ceiling.

Patrick presses his face into Hemmy’s neck and they settle back down together, Hemmy closing his eyes and Patrick following suit a moment later, patting at a furry belly.

Joe watches and then rolls onto his side, propping his head up on his hand. And even through the haze in his mind, Joe himself wonders why Andy didn’t stay behind when he’s so clearly of no use to Patrick like this.

Patrick cracks an eye open. “You can’t just stare at me like that.”

Joe looks around. “What should I be looking at?”

“Not me,” Patrick bites out. Joe huffs and scoots an unamused Hemmy out from between them and then wraps his arm around Patrick.

“What are you doing, Joe?”

Patrick sounds tired and Joe shrugs. “Go ahead and go to sleep.” Patrick opens his mouth to protest but Joe just grins and coos, “Pete will be back when you wake up.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Patrick blinks tiredly at him. “It’s not like Santa Claus.” But still, his eyelids droop and Joe just moves his head to rest beside Patrick’s on the pillow. He rubs a small circle around his low back and slowly Patrick eases off into sleep, inching his head just a little bit closer to Joe’s and soaking up his warmth.

Joe smiles to himself and decides to pin down his urge to go raid Pete’s fridge until he and Andy actually do get home and there’s someone besides a now-also-sleeping Hemmy to lay with Patrick.

 

\--

 

“ _Pete_!”

The absolutely frantic, panicked cry Patrick lets out causes Pete to jump and drop his coffee mug right into the sink where the handle breaks off and precious scalding hot caffeine is wasted, splashing out onto his shirt and the counter.

“What?” he yells, already sprinting into the bedroom, heart throbbing in his throat as he hurries over to where Patrick is hunched beside the bed, both hands pressed to the small swell of his stomach, shaking and digging in. “Patrick, what?” he urges, reaching down to take Patrick’s wrists. Patrick looks up at him, eyes wide and face pale.

“I felt something.”

“What kind of something?”

Patrick looks like he’s about to throw up. Pete pushes him back so he’s sitting on the bed and strokes the side of his head. “Patrick,” he insists again, instilling calm he doesn’t feel into his voice for his panic-stricken boyfriend rather than himself, “what did you feel?”

“Something… like fluttery, I don’t know; what if something’s wrong?”

Pete stares at him for a moment before Patrick jumps and grabs his hand and presses it down hard just under and to the right of his navel. “There!”

Pete’s palm is sweaty and he has no idea if maybe this is keeping him from feeling what Patrick is but he feels absolutely nothing. Normally he’d just try to brush it off, but Patrick is beside himself and his jaw is tense, clearly begging Pete with the look in his eyes to just _do something_.

“I’m gonna call Doctor Gray,” he says slowly, straightening and pulling his cell from his pocket and speed-dialing her. He goes to pace away but Patrick latches onto his fingers, other hand still pressed to his stomach and Pete doesn’t move, just squeezes back reassuringly.

 

\--

 

Luckily Doctor Gray is a professional, used to nervous first time parents, and she’s willing to calmly explain to them via speakerphone that what Patrick felt was the first movements of their child. Real movement—like the kicking that will keep Patrick awake at night in just a couple months—won’t begin for a while. Pete won’t be able to feel it before then and he doesn’t hide his disappointment at that statement.

When asked, she has no answers for when. If this were a regular pregnancy, Patrick would only be three months in, but he’s got fourth month development. She assumes in roughly two months when he hits, a normal pregnancy’s, seven months. He asks if he’s going to deliver a month early; again, she doesn’t know but assumes so.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Stump, I’m going to make sure everything is coming along properly and that we get you in at the right time.”

Pete watches Patrick take a deep, relieved breath and just nod, folding his fingers through Pete’s as he sits down beside him on the bed. Pete presses a kiss to his shoulder and rests his forehead there.

“I’d like to schedule you for an ultrasound for later in the week,” she continues. “I’d like to make sure the baby is developing properly and that its unusual conception hasn’t deterred or adversely effected growth.”

Neither Pete or Patrick have gone to medical school or taken courses in medical terminology but they both know exactly what she’s saying.

“There might be something wrong with it?” Patrick asks quietly, the hand he had placed on the side of his stomach moving to curl protectively around it.

“It’s possible with all pregnancies, Mr. Stump,” she says quietly, professionally.

Patrick looks utterly lost.

Pete pulls the phone closer to himself and takes over talking. “When can we do this? Like ASAP, right?”

Doctor Gray has a mostly open weekend so she agrees to fly back out for the occasion.

Patrick slumps on the bed with his face in his hands and Pete carefully tucks his own knee up under him and turns to enfold Patrick in his arms, rubbing at his neck and kissing the top of his bare head.

“Hey,” he says quietly after a moment and Patrick takes his time in looking up, eyes glossy and far away. Pete uses both thumbs to wipe away not-yet fallen tears. “Our baby is gonna be fine,” he assures. Patrick opens his mouth to cast doubt but Pete stops him, “I think you’re forgetting that this is baby Stump-Wentz. Our kid can do anything.”

Patrick smiles slowly and presses his face into Pete’s neck. Neither move until Joe and Andy arrive with Chinese.

 

\--

 

“So what you’re saying is you finally are gonna have ultrasound pictures in three days and I’m flying out in two.” Joe prepares to bitch and Andy rolls his eyes.

“I told you you should have moved out here when I did.”

Joe glares at him, “Traitor.” before looking back at Pete and Patrick across the table from them. “Seriously, you couldn’t have done it the day before or something?”

“No, now pass the General Tao,” Pete says, gesturing with his fork. Beside him Patrick smiles and Pete rubs his stomach gently.

Joe grabs the container away and holds it close to himself. “I’m serious, what the hell? Is this your secret ploy to drive me out of the band or something? _Operation Drive Joe Insane_?”

Andy rolls his eyes again and steals the chicken back from him.

Meanwhile Pete reaches over the table to shove his fork into an egg-roll laying defenseless on Joe’s plate. “You’ve got it all wrong, Troh,” he insists as he sits back and begins eating Joe’s food, “it’s _Operation Make Joe Jealous_.”

Joe’s eyes narrow and Patrick elbows Pete lightly. “She couldn’t fly out until Saturday,” Patrick informs him gently, idly twirling one of his chopsticks.

“Why don’t you just stay?” Pete continues. “Like you can’t afford a flight change. Andy, give me the fucking General Tao, you vegan asshole.” Joe eyes Patrick under the exchanging hands over the tabletop. “Andy’ll keep you.”

“Bullshit,” Andy grumbles and proceeds to dump a generous amount of rice onto his plate.

Joe looks hurt. “What the hell? I hate you guys.”

Pete and Patrick both glare across the table and Andy relents fairly easily and turns in his seat. “Oh please, Joe, stay with me a couple more days. I love having you messing up my house, making the guest room smell like pot, eating all my food and doing nothing to help out.”

Joe’s eyes are still narrowed but they flutter back to normal as he grins. “Okay, cool.” And digs back in.

Patrick laughs and shakes his head, leaning back in his chair and reaching for his can of Diet Coke.

They continue on with the normal banter for a while, just eating and absorbing each others company, talking about the baby and anything else before Joe suddenly looks thoughtful and Pete says, “Oh that’s nothing but trouble.”

Joe purses his lips and looks at Andy for a moment too long and Andy’s brow creases. “What, dude?”

Joe turns to Patrick. “Shotgun on godfather.”

Andy snaps instantly. “Oh _hell_ no; no fucking way, you live in Chicago! I’m gonna be right here the entire time—”

“Maybe I’ll move out here then!”

“Well you just do that and then we’ll see—”

They fade off into background noise as Pete laughs and reaches out to pull Patrick’s chair over and turns it into another belly-molesting session that has Patrick tugging the hem of his shirt back down and flushing slightly.

“Love you,” Pete whispers against his jaw, unsure if Patrick hears it over the commotion across the table until Patrick turns his head and catches Pete’s mouth with his own.

“You too.”

 

\--

 

“Pete,” Patrick gasps, pressing his head back into the pillows stacked behind him, “harder, harder, come _on_.”

He lets out a strangled groan when Pete grunts against his neck and hoists his legs up further, dragging Patrick down until his neck is bent up awkwardly against the bottom of the pillows and Pete is an imposing, sweaty, panting figure over him; holding his legs apart by the knees and thrusting for all he’s worth.

Drop after drop of sweat rolls off Pete’s chin, landing on Patrick’s forehead and throat, depending on if he’s sucking on Patrick’s pulse or gasping for air at the moment.

“Harder,” Patrick whines again, one hand tugging at himself and the other clawed into Pete’s shoulder.

“Fuck, ‘Trick,” Pete spits out, letting out a shaky breath. “Gonna… hurt you.”

Patrick shakes his head frantically and continues moving with Pete and cries out as his prostate is struck repeatedly. “ _There_! Oh fuck, right there! Don’t stop, don’t stop!”

Pete thrusts so hard he pulls out and can’t get back in right away. Patrick lets out a desperate sound and releases his own dick to reach down for Pete’s. Pete bats his hand away. “I got it, fuck, hold still.” And he’s back in, reclaiming the sweaty hollow of Patrick’s knee with his hand and picking up the pace once more.

Patrick closes his eyes, breathing heavily, stomach coiled tight with heat and ready to explode at any moment. He’s too close and the next brush of his finger over the head of his cock sends him right over the edge. He convulses up with a shout and comes against his own stomach.

Pete cries out at the sight and Patrick clenches around him so tightly he can barely even move. He collapses against Patrick and braces his knees under Patrick’s thighs and pushes in further and further, hips crushed against Patrick’s ass, until he’s coming too, spilling himself out against Patrick’s prostate, earning himself another hoarse whimper and then he’s done.

It takes a moment for Pete to actually reach down to pull himself out and another to climb off of Patrick altogether; entirely afraid of squishing the baby or something equally ridiculous.

He lays himself out beside Patrick and throws a sweaty arm over his head and pants into the darkness. “ _Shit_ ,” he whispers, letting his other hand rest on his stomach, running his fingers idly through the mess Patrick has apparently made on him.

The weight on the bed shifts and a soft click and dim light suggests Patrick has turned on the bedside lamp. Pete slowly lowers his arm and turns his head to study Patrick. He’s sitting up against the pillows, head back and face sweat-soaked, breathing heavily.

“Hey,” Pete says after a minute of just watching him exist, beautiful and just fucking glowing beside him.

Patrick looks down, hair sticking up at all angles and yet still weighed down by sweat; Patrick runs a hand through it and Pete sits up, pulling him over and into a kiss. “Bath?” Patrick suggests, sucking on his bottom lip and stealing the words right off his tongue with his own.

Pete purrs against his mouth and nods an affirmative before sliding off the bed.

 

\--

 

Pete is sitting in the bathtub with Patrick leaning back against him, head lolled back on his shoulder and eyes closed, breathing steadily. Pete continues running his hands over Patrick’s stomach, chewing on the side of his lip and more than a little absently hoping to feel that same flutter of movement that Patrick had.

He knew Doctor Gray said that it was impossible for him to feel it until another two months but that was just far too long for Pete. He wants to and usually that’s enough, his determination, to actually see something through and get it done.

But this… this just doesn’t work like that. There is nothing he can do to get this baby, _his_ baby to move enough to actually feel it. He knows it’s too small right now; he’d looked that up on the internet. It was only like three inches long, he reasons. But that doesn’t stop his face from contorting in something akin to hurt and continuously moving his hands around Patrick’s barely bulging stomach, hoping for something.

He sighs and tilts his own head back against the edge of the tub and brings his foot up to turn the hot water on again; it’s getting too lukewarm to be comfortable anymore. As he waits he closes his eyes and presses his hands down slightly harder and suddenly one of Patrick’s is covering one of his.

He doesn’t say anything so Pete doesn’t either, just curls their fingers together and gives the tub enough time to warm back up before maneuvering his foot up to turn the water back off and relax again.

When he thinks Patrick’s drifted off he rubs his thumb around lightly, not letting go of Patrick’s slackened grip and whispers, “Come on, baby,” into the heat around them.

 

\--

 

They’re on the way to Patrick’s first ultrasound appointment when Pete asks, “Which one of us gets to be called ‘Daddy’?” while they wait for the left turn arrow to show green so they can merge onto the expressway.

Patrick looks over at him, eyebrows drawing together. “I would assume both of us.”

“No, no, I mean,” Pete waves him off with one hand, dismissing what Patrick just said, “like I could be Daddy and you could be—”

“If you say ‘Mommy’ I swear to god I’ll commit spousal abuse right now with all these witnesses.”

Pete takes a look around. “No one’s looking.”

“And neither are you, the light’s green.”

Pete makes the turn and merges more carefully than he usually would if it was just him in the car. “I wasn’t gonna say the kid should call you Mommy,” Pete continues a minute later once they’re safely on their way. “I was gonna suggest ‘Maddy’ or something. Like Mom and Daddy mixed together.”

He can see Patrick giving him a scathing look from the corner of his eye. “Just because I’m carrying it doesn’t mean I’m going to be the effeminate figure. You wear the makeup, for fuck’s sake.”

Pete gives Patrick a hurt look before turning his attention back to the road; but then he’s grinning. “We sound like an old married couple.”

“I’m beginning to think that’s what you want us to be,” Patrick says, looking out the window.

Pete resists the urge to tease him about having another as soon as this one’s out on the grounds that this is all still just too fucking weird. This isn’t normal. This isn’t supposed to happen. But he’s endlessly grateful that they’re past the first initial freak-out and on into acceptance. Because as much as Pete knows this is a fucked situation at best, he wants it. And that scares him.

“So that’s a no on Maddy?” He withstands another of Patrick’s glares. “Paddy?”

“I’ll kill you dead if you teach _anyone_ to call me that.”

Pete bursts out laughing and Patrick shakes his head before resuming looking out the window. It isn’t long before he feels Pete taking the hand he has resting on his thigh.

Pete squeezes. Patrick squeezes back.

 

\--

 

Pete can see where taking Patrick to the doctor’s later on is going to be a problem, considering no one seems to recognize them but they get heavy stares from both the women in the room, who pretend to flip through the out-dated magazines in their hands but sending covert looks over the tops at them.

Patrick keeps his hat pulled low and his arms crossed over his chest.

The secretary calls in one of the women before them and they wait a good twenty minutes before Doctor Gray shows up and invites them to follow her to one of the exam rooms and has Patrick sit down on the examination bed.

“How exactly did you talk another doctor into letting you use their office?” Pete is looking around at the Georgia O’Keefe paintings on the wall and narrowing his eyes.

“Friends in high places,” she says absently, turning on the ultrasound machine before looking at Patrick. “I’ll need you to remove all jewelry and your hat.” When Patrick nods and begins to unhook his watch she heads for the door. “I just need to grab your paperwork and I’ll be right back.”

Pete is still staring at the purple flower on the wall before him, holding out his hand to receive Patrick’s watch and hat. “That flower looks suspiciously like a vagina.”

Patrick snorts and sits back on the bed, crossing his legs at the ankles and folding his hands over his stomach. He doesn’t bother looking at the painting and just waits for Pete to turn back him.

“Seriously, ‘Trick, look at it.”

“If I liked looking at vaginas I probably wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”

There’s a moment of silence before Pete scoots closer on the rolling stool he’s seated on. He pockets Patrick’s watch and takes his hand in his own, smiling up at him. “This is really weird.”

“You think?”

“No, Patrick, I mean like really, _really_ fucking weird.” Patrick’s eyes roll and he doesn’t comment further. “But I mean,” Pete continues slowly, “I want it.” Which makes Patrick tilt his head back in Pete’s direction with his eyebrows slightly raised.

Quietly he asks, “Really?”

Pete nods, licking his bottom lip out of nervous habit and re-gripping Patrick’s hand with his non-sweating one, transferring the hat between them after wiping it on his pant leg. “Yeah. Yeah, totally.” Silence settles over them as they look at one another again. “You do too, right?”

There’s a quick knock and Doctor Gray is back in the room, flipping the light off, chart in hand and bustling about, pulling the machine closer.

“Are we ready?” she asks them both, but looks at Patrick, who nods minutely.

Pete feels his hand begin to sweat in Patrick’s grip and he just continues to hold it.

 

\--

 

Pete sucks in a breath when the transducer probe moving slowly through the gel on Patrick’s exposed stomach finally finds what it’s looking for.

“Right there,” Doctor Gray sounds pleased and stops. “See?” She points to the screen where a very tiny, almost unidentifiable, figure floats off towards the top right.

Patrick’s head comes up off the bed as he looks and squints his eyes to better make it out. He says nothing.

Pete leans over him, face to face with the screen. He opens and closes his mouth a few times before bouncing back onto his heels and then forward again. “Seriously?”

Doctor Gray laughs lightly. “That’s it.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

She laughs louder. “It’s far too soon to know, Mr. Wentz.”

“Oh.” Pete’s shoulders drop slightly but then pick right back up as he turns his awed gaze on Patrick, who is still staring mostly blankly at the screen. “’Trick?”

Patrick looks up at him and then back at the screen. “Yeah?” he sounds quiet and slightly nauseous. 

“You see it?”

“Yeah.”

The bottom of Pete’s stomach is tempted to fall right out. He swallows dryly. “Our baby.”

Patrick looks back at him finally. “It looks like a shrimp. Like seafood shrimp.”

Pete is silent a moment before laughing and leaning back over to get an even closer view of the screen. “It totally does,” he agrees a moment later. “Our little Mermaid Baby.”

“Shrimp Baby,” Patrick clarifies.

“Why can’t we hear the heartbeat?” Pete asks after a moment when she moves the probe a little on Patrick’s stomach.

“It’s too soon. In a month or two you’ll be able to hear it.”

Pete nods; resigned and a little deflated.

“You can see here though.” She points to the screen where a distorted pulse is outlined.

Pete and Patrick both stare, hands still clenched together.

“Would you like pictures?” Doctor Gray interrupts the silence a few moments later.

Both of them look at her. Pete says, “Definitely” at the same moment Patrick says, “Yes.”

She prints off a two and then several more when Patrick asks with Joe and Andy in mind. Joe missed his flight back to Chicago for this, after all; Patrick figures he deserves a picture.

When Doctor Gray leaves the room again after handing Patrick the pictures to give them a moment alone, Patrick just keeps staring down at the grainy black and white glossy images in his hand, rubbing his thumb repeatedly over their Shrimp Baby on the top one.

Pete watches him carefully.

“You all right?” he asks when Patrick hands them over and then uses a nearby stack of paper towels to wipe his stomach dry and pull his shirt down.

“You have my hat?”

Pete hands it over along with his watch and sits down beside him while Patrick fumbles with the clasp. Pete takes his arm across his own lap and then hooks it before sliding his fingers through Patrick’s. He waits.

Patrick nearly whispers, “I don’t know if I can do this, Pete.”

Patrick looks ghostly in the minimal light filtering in through the blinds and his skin is clammy under Pete’s fingers.

“You can,” Pete breathes into Patrick’s shoulder, pressing a kiss through the fabric of his shirt. “I’m here, dude. I’m not going anywhere. It’s us, not—you’re not alone, Patrick.”

Patrick is silent again before breathing deeply, lifting his shoulders and then exhaling, gazing up at the ceiling and Pete prays that he’s not about to cry.

Pete says the only thing he really feels completely sure about in that moment. “I love you.”

Patrick turns his head, eyes dry but far away, and kisses Pete gently. “You too.”

Pete rubs his stomach and then grins, dropping his head enough that Patrick can press another kiss to his forehead before he buries his face in his neck and sighs suddenly blissfully. “We saw his heartbeat.”

“His?” Patrick asks, pulling back until Pete sits up.

Pete just shrugs. “I don’t wanna call it an ‘it’ for the next however many weeks.”

“Names later,” Patrick insists.

“Shrimp Baby will do until then.”

Patrick laughs lightly when Pete kisses him again and they pull apart when Doctor Gray comes back in.

 

\--

 

“So my godchild is healthy?” Andy asks, looking down at his own personal Stump-Wentz Shrimp Baby picture and smiling minutely.

“ _My_ godchild,” Joe grumbles, holding his own picture closer to his face. “It _does_ look like a shrimp.”

Pete groans. “Don’t you guys dare call my kid that. _Patrick_.” 

Patrick has the decency to drop his head slightly.

 

\--

 

Pete is seated comfortably with Patrick on the chaise lounge on the porch overlooking the Hills, both leaning back against the wall, Patrick curled into Pete and Pete with his arm around his shoulders. Neither have spoken in a long time, both are just watching the lightning and listening to the thunder as it rolls in closer.

“We should go in soon,” Patrick says tiredly from his position against Pete’s side.

Pete nods, fingertips running over the bit of skin just below Patrick’s shirt sleeve, but doesn’t make a move to get up. Patrick doesn’t either.

They go silent until drops of rain begin falling, making ripples in the pool below. “You want this, right?”

Pete stills his movement against Patrick’s arm but doesn’t otherwise move. Patrick feels more than a little sick but doesn’t ask again; he knows Pete heard him.

Eventually he responds, “Do you?”

Pete’s avoiding the question. “You’re avoiding the question.”

Pete shifts slightly, unfolding his arm from around Patrick and taking his hand instead, threading their fingers together. “I thought I’d made it pretty clear that I did from the beginning. I mean, yeah, hello, I’m fucking freaked, but yes, Patrick. Yes, I want the kid, I want it with you, I want the pacifiers, the runny noses and the fuckin’ late night feedings okay?”

Patrick says nothing but pulls away and sits forward, rubbing his eyes hard and then burying his face in his hands. Pete doesn’t move but swallows the urge to be sick.

“Pete…” Patrick trails off.

“Seriously, ‘Trick, you—you haven’t even tried to pretend you want it, not even at the fucking ultrasound. We _saw_ it and you didn’t even—” Pete cuts himself off and stands up, pacing towards the door and then back again. “If you don’t want it, Patrick,” he says, his voice and eyes hard, “it’s kinda late in the game to say something.”

Patrick stands and grabs Pete’s elbow, stopping him from stomping around. “Pete, you’re overreacting.”

“Bullshit!” Pete yanks his arm back and forces Patrick back with a hand on his shoulder. “We’re having a kid together and…” he trails off, deflating, “and, god, if you don’t want it, just fucking say.”

“I do, Pete,” Patrick says quietly.

“Then why aren’t you even acting like it?”

“Because I’m fucking _scared_ , Pete!” Patrick finally snaps, knocking Pete’s hand off his shoulder and advancing on him instead. “This isn’t _normal_ , Pete, it’s fucking freaking me out and I don’t know how to really act otherwise. Pretty easy for you to be okay with this because it isn’t your body! I’m the one who has to—”

“If you even say what I think you’re about to say you can seriously get the fuck out of my house right now,” Pete says, growling harshly.

Patrick stares and then slumps. “I want this kid, Pete.” He brings his hands up only to let them fall back uselessly at his sides. “I don’t know what else to say to make you believe that.”

They stare at one another until a too-close crash of thunder makes them both jump and Pete pushes Patrick towards the sliding glass door and into the house. He closes and locks it behind them but says nothing.

They don’t talk again until Pete curls himself over Patrick’s back as he stands at the kitchen counter a couple hours later, flipping through a magazine, waiting for the pasta he’s warming up to get done.

Pete knows he should apologize but he hasn’t straightened it all up in his head yet and he knows Patrick won’t force it out of him; he wants to say something, unsure of what even when he starts, “’Trick—”

“Seeing it made it too real,” Patrick cuts him off, “it just freaked me out.”

Pete turns Patrick slowly and then presses in against him, taking his face in his hands and kissing him.

“But in addition to being scared shitless,” Patrick breathes against his mouth when they pull away for air, eyes half-lidded, “I’m also happy that it’s you. And us.”

Pete smiles and keeps Patrick where he is until the microwave beeps.

 

\--

 

It isn’t until about the tenth night where the four of them have dinner together, Joe having flown back out for another two weeks, that Patrick finally comments.

“I think we’ve spent more time together in the past couple months of non-touring than we have in the entire time we’ve known each other.”

They’re all hanging out in the backyard, Pete in the hot tub, Andy and Patrick laying around on deck chairs and Joe in the pool with Hemmy; Penny is standing at the edge barking angrily at Joe.

“Probably,” Pete says, tilting his head back to look at Patrick. “Hey, light that candle, will ya?”

Patrick rolls his eyes, sits up and takes Joe’s lighter off the nearby table and does as asked.

“Setting the mood, are we?” Joe calls.

“Citronella candle, asshole. I think the mosquitoes are out.” Pete smacks at one on his exposed shoulder. “And let go of my dog.”

Patrick sits back down with a slight groan, touching the side of his stomach and sitting upright again, panting as though he’s out of breath.

“You all right?” Andy asks.

Pete stands up immediately and hops out of the hot tub. “’Trick?”

“I’m fine,” he snaps back, batting Pete’s hand away from him.

“PMSing much?” Andy asks, eyebrow raised.

Patrick looks at him and pushes Pete’s hands away again. “I’m _fine_.”

Pete sits down on the ground beside him anyway, tilting his head back onto Patrick’s thigh and calling for Hemmy, who squirms away from Joe and swims towards the steps.

“You thought about names yet or are you just gonna call it Shrimp Baby until it’s born?” Andy asks as he folds his arms behind his head.

Patrick reaches down and holds his hand out; Pete takes it and presses a kiss to it.

“Can’t do that,” Joe says, shaking off, much like Hemmy, before grabbing a towel and rubbing at his hair.

Pete looks up at him, mumbling a, “Huh?” Patrick’s hand cards through his hair repeatedly; he resists the urge to purr.

“Bad luck,” Patrick informs him.

“Says who?”

“Jewish tradition,” Joe says, toweling down his arms. “Gotta wait ‘til it’s born.”

Pete rolls his head back against the chair to look at Patrick. “I don’t wanna wait until it’s born. I don’t wanna call it ‘it’ either.” He lifts his head back up to face Joe. “We’re not Jewish, anyway.”

“But the godfather is.”

Andy snatches up his half-empty Rockstar can from the ground beside him and tosses it at Joe who dodges it fairly easily. “I swear I’ll drown you,” he threatens.

Joe shrugs and drops down to let his feet slosh through the water of the hot tub.

“We’ll name it beforehand but we just won’t tell you,” Pete reasons.

“Whatever, dude, you _better_ tell me or you can kiss your baby shower gifts goodbye.”

Patrick lifts his head up at that. “What baby shower would that be?”

Pete glares at Joe whose eyes widen suspiciously. He opens his mouth to lie but all that comes out is an apologetic, “Oops?” at Pete.

“Hurley may be all talk but I really _will_ kill you.”

“Pete, I don’t want a fucking baby shower,” Patrick shoves Pete’s head away from him and sits up, swinging his legs over the other side of the chair and standing.

Pete pushes himself up. “It’s a theoretical party. I was just tossing ideas around.”

“Well toss that one right the fuck out. I don’t want everyone knowing about this right now.” Patrick pushes Pete out of his way but Pete grabs hold of his arm. “Pete, don’t.”

“When are we gonna tell people then?” Patrick wrenches his arm away but Pete just grabs it again, both overly aware of the way Andy and Joe are staring at them. “Patrick, seriously, come on.”

“I don’t know, Pete,” Patrick spits. “Just leave me alone right now.” He looks down at where Pete is still latched onto his arm and adds, “Seriously.”

Pete lets him go and Patrick walks off.

 

\--

 

At nineteen weeks Patrick has his second ultrasound and Doctor Gray lets out an unintelligent sounding, “Huh.”

Patrick and Pete both look from the screen to her.

“’Huh’? What’s ‘huh’?” Patrick sounds almost breathlessly terrified. Pete squeezes his hand and Doctor Gray moves the probe around his stomach a little.

“Nothing bad. It—it just seems as though, well… I could have told the sex a week or two ago.” She looks down at him with a small smile. “Your pregnancy is moving along swiftly.”

Patrick licks his bottom lip and gazes back at the screen, then to Pete. “You wanna know?”

“The sex?” Pete asks. Patrick nods. “I don’t know, I mean, _I_ totally do, but if you don’t… I can wait. I guess.”

Patrick studies him a moment before turning back to Doctor Gray. “We’d like to know.”

She smiles back and gestures to the screen.

 

\--

 

Joe lets out an extremely unmanly, “Aww…” when they tell him. He holds the picture aloft and smiles at it. “She’s so much bigger now.”

Andy rolls his eyes and hugs Patrick and then Pete. “Congrats guys! You ready to have hoards of emo boys coming calling for your daughter?”

Pete groans. “Don’t _even_ say that. She’s never going anywhere with anyone at any point in her life ever.” Patrick laughs and Pete kisses him. “I’m so totally serious.”

“Maybe you’ll luck out and she’ll be a lesbian,” Joe supplies, still gazing at the picture.

“Even better,” Andy says, shoving him lightly, “then Pete can fight off a bunch of butch chicks.”

The three of them laugh but Pete is suddenly busy pulling Patrick against him from behind, hands rubbing over his still small, but extremely swollen stomach and smiling against the back of his neck.

 

\--

 

Later that night, Pete has removed Patrick’s shirt and is lying with his head on Patrick’s stomach, one hand curled around Patrick’s thigh.

“I can’t believe you’re not gonna get much bigger than this.”

“You sound disappointed,” Patrick says absently, staring off into the room and petting at Pete’s hair.

Pete pushes himself up onto his elbows. “Kinda.” Patrick looks at him like he’s insane. “Well I mean… I don’t get it. Why not?”

Patrick holds back the sigh he wants to let loose and burrows his head back farther into the pillows. “Doctor Gray explained it already, Pete. I don’t have enough room for a baby. She can’t get too big because there’s nowhere for her to go.”

“I _know_ that,” Pete huffs and leans his head against Patrick’s stomach. “I just—it’s not really fair.” 

Patrick arches an eyebrow and looks down at him skeptically. “ _What_ isn’t fair? That I don’t have to gain seventy-eight pounds?”

Pete rolls his eyes and rubs the slightly stretched skin under Patrick’s stomach, causing him to moan lightly in relief. He’s been complaining about his body’s adjustments; it feels like the growth spurt he’d never gotten as a pre-teen. His skin is just too tight over his stomach and his muscles ache; with his sped-up pregnancy he isn’t being given a normal adjustment, the slow change, women go through, all of a sudden it’s just _there_ with him and it _hurts_. Pete continues to move his fingers, easing out whatever tension he can for Patrick as he speaks. “I just want to see that fuckin’ glow or whatever that they say all pregnant ladies have, you know? I wanna look at you and go, ‘damn, that’s my fucking _kid_ in there’, you know?”

“Not really, no,” Patrick says without missing a beat, sounding worn down. “All I see out of this is stretch marks and swollen ankles.” He sighs forlornly, “I’ll never have my beach body back again.”

Pete snorts and kisses his stomach again before moving up the bed to press his lips to Patrick’s. “I love your body,” Pete assures him on a whisper, before slipping his tongue out to run it along Patrick’s bottom lip and then dip it into his open mouth.

Patrick kisses him back, heatedly, reaching up to grip Pete’s biceps and groaning into his mouth when Pete presses in harder, slipping a hand down Patrick’s stomach to rub at the crotch of his pajama bottoms.

Patrick pushes him away then, “Pete—”

Pete shushes him, pecking his lips once more before crawling back down the bed and situating himself between Patrick’s legs. His pajama pants are tossed to the floor and Pete lifts his legs, settling Patrick’s thighs over his shoulders and leaning down with a contended sound, taking Patrick’s erection in one hand and stroking it slowly.

Arching up off the bed seems like it should be more than a little impossible with the way his muscles have been aching lately, but his dick certainly doesn’t agree.

Pete swallows him down without much teasing, humming as he moves his head up and down to press against his still hand, squeezing the base rhythmically. He swallows around Patrick and sucks at the head, pulling out all the stops but still taking his time, knowing exactly how to make Patrick whine in the back of his throat the way Pete loves and achieving it easily.

“I love doing this for you,” Pete informs him quietly, voice hoarse and gravelly.

Patrick’s fingers slip through his hair and his hips thrust up minutely, heels digging into Pete’s back. “Love it when you do it,” he pants.

Pete just smiles to himself before licking his lips, looking up at Patrick’s vaguely sweaty face and dropping his head again.

Patrick gives Pete fair warning but Pete just pulls back to the head and swallows, licking his lips and pulling the two fingers out of Patrick’s ass that he’d slipped in a couple minutes before and wiping them on his own pajama bottoms.

A moment later, once Patrick has caught his breath, he’s pulling Pete up the bed; or rather making grabby hands at Pete’s shoulders and gesturing him up with a weak moan.

Pete collapses down beside him, pushing his dick into Patrick’s hip without really meaning to. He whimpers and clenches his eyes. Patrick can reduce him to a puddle of incoherent moron just by coming.

Pete is reminded of just how far gone he is, and has been, for Patrick.

It takes Patrick a too-long minute to catch his breath and then he’s half on top of Pete, hand down his pants and jerking him off quickly, roughly, the way that has Pete tugging at his own hair, because he knows how much Patrick hates his own hair being pulled, and thrusting up, spurting stupidly, too soon all over his own stomach. He watches Patrick bring his dripping hand up and suck two of his fingers clean and moans helplessly, thrusting up again into nothing before pulling Patrick down on top of him and nuzzling his throat.

“God, _fuck_ ,” he says intelligently. “What the fuck would I—” he shakes his head and just pulls Patrick down into a significantly less frantic, but just as needy, kiss and pets his damp cheeks. “You are just so fucking mine.”

Patrick nods absently, eyes tired and body relaxing against Pete’s. He presses one final kiss to the corner of Pete’s mouth and nuzzles in, quickly falling asleep on top of him.

It takes Pete a small eternity to squirm out from under him without waking Patrick up. He slips into the bathroom to clean up and then brings a wet washcloth back with him to wipe down Patrick’s stomach before tossing it in the general direction of the hamper and climbs back into bed with him.

Patrick curls into him instantly and it takes Pete less then a minute to fall asleep with him.

\--

It happens a week and a half later, Patrick and Pete are fighting in the kitchen while Andy stands on the edge, waiting, trying to step in to stop them; Joe is holding a whining Hemmy and a fiercely yapping Penny in place on the couch.

Pete keeps stepping in closer, forcing Patrick to take a step back each time until he is pressed against the cabinets and Pete is standing over him yelling, which is when Andy finally grabs Pete’s arm and yanks him back and begins some yelling of his own. Pete turns on him and their hands are flying, gesturing wildly and their voices raised, screaming over one another and then Patrick is doubled over clutching the counter and suddenly none of it matters anymore.

Both Andy and Pete grab at him, asking what’s wrong, but Patrick slaps Pete’s hands away, letting Andy bend down, get in his face and ask him if he’s all right. Pete glares and folds his arms over his chest. Normally he’d stalk off and pout until he and Patrick were calmed down enough to just forget whatever they’d been fighting about, but pissed off or not he’s still worried so he stays put.

Joe, by this time, has released the dogs, Hemmy runs to Pete and promptly sits on his feet staring up at him with wide eyes [Pete ignores them, they feel accusing], while Penny stands back, looking up at Patrick. Joe waits quietly where Andy had been standing a minute before.

“I don’t know,” Patrick says, shaking his head, “just fucking hurt.”

Andy rubs his shoulder and gets him to stand up straight. “Kicking?”

“I don’t think she can do that. I don’t even know if she has actual feet yet.” Andy laughs.

“Probably heard you two fighting.”

Patrick eyes him skeptically, but hey, Andy’s been right about… well… _everything_ so far, even if it has been all guess-work up to this point. Patrick sees no reason why he should be wrong now; and he can tell from the way Pete has unfolded his arms that he seems to be on the same train of thought.

Andy turns to Pete and makes a small nod in Patrick’s direction before backing off and taking Joe with him.

It only takes a moment before Pete has a clutching Patrick in his arms and he can’t remember what the fuck they were fighting about in the first place.

 

\--

 

When Joe and Andy leave that night they lay in bed together and watch _A Beautiful Mind_ while Pete pens lyrics he knows will never see song-form until he and Patrick present their child to the world.

Bitterly, he almost laughs out loud.

 

\--

 

Patrick wakes him up that night with all his thrashing around, twisting under the sheets and groaning to himself. It takes Pete a moment to realize that Patrick isn’t having a nightmare or anything, but he’s just that restless.

“Dude,” he mumbles into the pillow, blinking tiredly in the dull moonlight filtering into the room— why the fuck did they leave the shade open?— “you need something?”

Patrick rolls onto his side facing Pete with a huff. “I can’t sleep.”

“So you thought keeping me awake would help that?”

“Fuck you.”

“Quit being a dick and lay down on your back.” Pete pushes himself up and turns on the bedside light before getting out of bed to close the shade and then climbing back in beside Patrick; pulling the covers down with him and pushing Patrick’s shirt up.

Patrick looks slightly guilty and he closes his eyes when Pete starts rubbing at the sides of his stomach, making his toes curl and his cheeks flush. “I’m sorry, Pete,” he whispers.

Pete just shrugs and keeps working.

It’s a while later, when Patrick is a boneless, relaxed mess under Pete’s hands that Pete finally responds, laying across the bed on his stomach and pressing a series of kisses across Patrick’s stomach. “You think she really heard us fighting?”

Patrick nods. “I have no idea where I’m at in this,” he mumbles before yawning and reaching down to rest his fingertips on Pete’s shoulder, “but I’m pretty sure we’re at the point where she can detect sound.”

Pete looks up at him. “You think she knows who we are?”

Patrick opens his mouth to respond twice before shaking his head. “Not yet. She’s just starting to hear. Couple weeks still, I think. I don’t remember really,” he yawns again, “we gotta ask Doctor Gray again.”

 

Pete presses one more kiss to Patrick’s stomach, whispering goodnight against it before climbing back up the bed, replacing the covers around them, clicking off the light and curling himself over Patrick.

They both fall asleep easily after that.

 

\--

 

When Doctor Gray told Patrick he was going to start putting on weight any day now, he didn’t think it would be as bad as it was since just a few weeks before she had told him that he wasn’t going to get much bigger than he already was.

Apparently she’d been slightly off in that assumption.

But, even through his anger, Patrick is able to forgive her; she’d never been through this type of pregnancy before either, so he doesn’t expect her to know _everything_.

“Just fucking shoot me,” Patrick grumbles one afternoon while Joe is on Patrick-sitting duty. They’re laid out in the theater, 360 controllers in hand, when Patrick suddenly feels like if doesn’t go upstairs and eat whatever’s leftover of the pizza from the night before he’s absolutely going to _die_.

“Again?” Joe asks, eyes flicking away from the screen for a moment to see Patrick nod miserably.

To his credit, Joe takes it completely in stride, putting his best _Halo_ game to date on hold, to stand and pause the system to go along with Patrick while he gorges for the third time in two hours.

They never get back to the game. Joe never complains.

 

\--

“I’m seriously the most disgusting person _ever_ ,” he tells Pete later that night when he’s stepping out of the shower and looking at himself in the mirror. “Turn off the light.”

Pete laughs, holding his toothbrush in place with his teeth, and grabs Patrick’s towel from the rack and wraps it around his shoulders, rubbing at his face with it. Patrick tries to bat his hands off for all of three seconds before giving in and leaning forward to let Pete gently dry his hair.

“Then I wouldn’t be able to see my two favorite people,” Pete manages to say without drooling too much.

“When did Joe and Andy get here?” Patrick grumbles, completely monotone.

Pete laughs and has to turn to spit in the sink. He rinses his mouth and sets his toothbrush back down before laughing again, lightly, leaning in to kiss Patrick’s forehead. “You are such a complete shit, you know that?”

“Why do you even love me?” Patrick whines, wrapping the towel tighter around him. “I’m gonna get fucking huge and I’m never going to be able to leave here at all for the next four hundred months.”

Pete pulls Patrick in closer, leaning back onto the sink ledge, bringing the wet body with him, kissing him slowly. “Good. I get to have you all to myself.”

Patrick tries not to scoff out loud. “Don’t see why you’d want to.”

“And besides,” Pete continues as though Patrick had never spoken, “if you’re five months now and you’re gonna go at eight? That’s three months.”

“Oh, _so_ much better, thanks,” Patrick says as he rolls his eyes.

Pete just grins again and ushers them into the bedroom so they can get ready for bed.

 

\--

 

Some time around four am Pete wakes up in a cold sweat, bolting upright, heart throbbing in his throat. He can’t breathe, his chest is too tight, his legs hurt and he feels instantly like he’s going insane.

“Breathe, Pete.” Patrick is right there, speaking calmly into his ear, rubbing his back, even though he knows Pete hates being touched when he has a panic attack. “Breathe,” Patrick sounds insistent, so Pete does, taking a gasping breath and clutching at the sheets until his knuckles turn white.

Pete doesn’t remember the nightmare, but he’s suddenly aware that nothing’s changed between them, not really anyway, Patrick is still the one holding _him_ when he finally calms down enough to fall back asleep. 

 

\--

 

When Patrick has his twenty-three week ultrasound he’s informed that Shrimp Baby is now at week twenty-nine development.

Pete and Patrick exchange a look and then turn their questioning gazes on Doctor Gray. “He’s moving beyond just a month ahead,” she tells them quietly, “like it’s picking up speed or something.”

The expression makes Patrick feel like he’s going to throw up. “So how soon is this going to happen?”

She removes the probe from his stomach and waits for the pictures to finish printing before she speaks. “It’s looking at least a month early.” She hands the pictures to Pete and sighs, turning off the machine and looking at a much-larger-than-anticipated Patrick. “But I can’t tell you for sure; I didn’t think you were going to get much larger than you were the last time, but you’ve proven me wrong.”

Patrick frowns down at himself but Pete squeezes his shoulder and he cuts off his self-depreciating thoughts before they can really gather steam. “So I’m going to get even bigger?”

“Honestly, I don’t believe so. The baby can’t get much bigger than it is now; her growth has slowed slightly. I think you’ve stretched as much as you can to accommodate.”

Patrick reaches a blind hand up to Pete, who takes it without hesitation and leans down to press a kiss to his temple.

When she leaves them alone for a minute Pete sits beside him on the bed and they look at the pictures. Patrick can’t explain the tears burning his eyes, but it’s not a bad feeling so he just lets them build until they spill over and Pete pulls him close, whispering how beautiful both he and the baby are.

 

\--

 

It takes Pete all of ten seconds after they get home to begin talking to Patrick’s stomach non-stop. Doctor Gray had informed them that at this stage the baby would be able to recognize their voices and would begin moving a lot more than usual.

Patrick pushes him away the first few times after it becomes more than a simple, _Luke, I am your father_ , spoken right into his navel, no less.

“Pete, seriously, she’s gonna think her name is Luke or something.”

Pete looks up beaming. “You think so? Should we name her Luke?” He rubs at Patrick’s stomach and presses his lips up against Patrick’s skin where he’s shoved his shirt up. “Hey baby, how’s daddy’s girl doing in there?”

Patrick pushes his head back again but Pete won’t stop grinning and following him around, hands glued to Patrick’s sides and stomach and constantly speaking right into his swollen front.

Despite everything though, Patrick can’t help but revel in the attention as he lies back on the bed and finally gives in, letting Pete rest his head on him and talk away at his stomach, rubbing at the tense muscles and just telling her stories.

It could be a lot worse, he reasons. Pete could want nothing to do with this or him or their kid. He closes his eyes and smiles, letting Pete have his way and talk them both to sleep.

 

\--

 

Patrick wakes up in the middle of the night to find Pete curled over top of him, leg between his and one arm around his stomach, curled down on his chest like he had fallen asleep in the middle of another story about a tour escapade.

Patrick figures he probably did and falls back asleep watching the rhythmic rise and fall of Pete’s back. He’s sleeping deeply and calmly and Patrick isn’t stupid enough to try to talk himself out of the knowledge that it’s because of this.

He rests easy knowing that anything that can make Pete sleep so comfortably is definitely a very, very good thing.

 

\--

Andy comes down with something two days later at which point he sends Joe over to stay with Pete and Patrick because he just can’t focus on doing nothing to get better with Joe bugging him constantly.

Patrick is sitting at the dining room table with his Macbook open before him, headphones in place as Joe continually wanders through the house. When Pete wakes up, Joe is on his twelfth pass through the upstairs hallway.

“Seriously, what is he doing?” Pete asks on the fourteenth.

Patrick looks up at him and slides his headphones off. “Sorry, what?”

“What is he doing?” He gestures to Joe.

Patrick shrugs. “I have no idea.”

They stare at one another for a moment before Pete realizes that Patrick isn’t worried and is therefore never going to ask. He sits back with a sigh and calls Joe over to the table.

“What are you doing besides wearing a hole through my floor?”

“When are you going to start buying, you know, baby stuff… and stuff?” He might be high, Patrick isn’t sure.

Pete glances across the table at Patrick who is just staring at him, like this is something huge that they’ve both somehow managed to overlook entirely. And really? It is.

“Soon,” Pete tells him.

“Just have the shower, then you only have to buy like half of it.”

Joe wanders off to go lay down on the couch a moment later, not waiting for a response, and Pete turns back to face Patrick and the two stare one another down.

 

\--

 

Later, after Patrick has made the obligatory call to see how Andy is doing, he’s standing around in the kitchen while Pete makes one of the only things he knows how to cook, when a sudden jolt in his stomach sends Patrick’s coffee cup to the floor.

He’s got both hands flat on his stomach and Pete is beside him instantly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

His stomach does it again. “Shit, feel,” Patrick gasps, pulling one of Pete’s hands to where his was and then they wait. It takes a couple seconds but the push repeats itself and Pete feels his baby move for the very first time.

His eyes widen and he looks up at Patrick. “That was—” Patrick nods, “—our?”

Pete has Patrick wrapped up in a tight hug and a breathless kiss pressed to his mouth a mere moment later, which is how Joe discovers them with a groan. “Not in front of the kids, please.”

 

\--

 

When he wakes up the next morning, Pete takes Hemmy and Penny out back, leaving Patrick to sleep, needing some time to himself to think. With the realization that he felt his child and that Patrick isn’t going to make it to a full nine months, Pete knows he has somewhere between two and three months to finish everything that needs to be done.

He makes a mental list while playing with his dog and then finally goes inside to make some calls.

He waits for Andy to come over to collect Joe before he starts doing anything.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do with that bed,” Pete tells him once they, along with Joe, are standing around in the guest room.

“Put it in the basement,” Andy suggests, turning around on his spot and gazing. “You need to do some serious shopping.”

Pete just barely resists the urge to snort. “Because I can really just go out and buy baby shit without someone seeing and then selling the pictures to some fuckin’ tabloid.”

“You gotta stop swearing too,” Joe says helpfully, cracking a huge grin, “you can’t let your baby’s first word be ‘fuck’.”

Pete just flips him off.

“Hire a personal shopper or something,” Andy says, facing him, arms folded over his chest. “Or buy online.”

Pete looks away for a moment, biting his lip. “I don’t know, I just—” his shoulders slump slightly, “—I wanted Patrick and I to be able to do it together. You know?”

Andy gives him a short, sympathetic nod.

“We can help,” Joe says, glancing down at his phone and then back at Pete.

“Yeah, so then everyone can think that _we’re_ the gay couple,” Andy says dryly.

Pete smacks the side of Andy’s head. Andy just gives him a warning glance. Pete doesn’t look even slightly repentant.

“I think you three are overlooking a vastly under-tapped resource,” Patrick’s tired voice comes from the doorway, making them all jump.

“Which is?” Andy asks.

“Greta and Vicky.”

 

\--

 

Pete swings his legs idly as he sits on the counter, rolling his phone between his hands as he watches Patrick pace around, Penny hot on his heels.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Pete asks, causing Patrick to look up. “Tell them, I mean.”

Patrick doesn’t look entirely sure about it, but he just nods. “We kinda have to, Pete. I mean, people are gonna find out that I’ve had a kid at some point, aren’t they?”

Pete looks oddly far away at that statement. “Yeah, I guess,” he says slowly.

“What?” Patrick asks, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie as he steps in closer.

Pete just shrugs and looks down at his hands, digging at his nails and his bottom lip pouting slightly.

Patrick rolls his eyes and places his hands on Pete’s knees, drawing his gaze. “Pete.” He waits for Pete to look down at him before continuing, “What? Seriously.”

The bottom lip just pouts further but he doesn’t lie, he hesitates, but doesn’t lie, “Are you— I mean, are you, _we_ , gonna…”

“Do you want to?” Patrick asks quietly, suddenly aware that his palms are sweaty against the material of Pete’s jeans.

Pete is practically gnawing on his bottom lip; Patrick reaches up and sticks a finger into Pete’s mouth, pulling it free. Pete laughs and runs a hand over his face, taking a deep breath and letting it slowly out.

“Yeah,” he finally says on an exhale. “Yeah, I want to.” Patrick’s smile looks like it’s being ripped straight from his heart. Pete slides down off the counter and pulls him in around the shoulders, dropping his face into Patrick’s neck and breathing slowly, trying to keep his head from spinning so fast. “She’s ours. You’re mine. And I wanna tell people that.”

Patrick’s breathing speeds up slightly and his fingers tighten in Pete’s shirt; Pete notices both but doesn’t move except to kiss him.

When he pulls back Patrick’s eyes are red and he sniffs once. “I wasn’t sure we’d ever do this, you know.” It’s not a question; Pete nods, rubbing at the base of Patrick’s neck.

“I want to. If you do.” Patrick nods and pulls Pete down into another kiss, letting their mouths open and their tongues slide together.

Pete doesn’t even try to convince himself that the dampness he feels on his cheeks is just from Patrick.

 

\--

 

That night, after dinner, Pete takes Patrick and their dogs out on a drive. He knows it’s stupidly reckless to risk being seen together when Patrick’s in the state he is, but he honestly doesn’t care. Patrick has barely left the house in the past three months and Pete doesn’t want to keep him locked up there like he’s ashamed of him.

They stop for ice cream when Patrick’s phone rings. He turns off the radio and says, “Greta,” before answering.

Pete kind of swallows his heart right back to where it’s supposed to be.

He listens as Patrick explains, flushing minimally, what has happened and vaguely hears Greta’s soft responses. Since Patrick isn’t freaking out and throwing the phone or yelling, he figures that it’s going all right. And by the time they get back home Greta has made plans to fly out to LA to spend a week with them to get down their vision in baby furniture to reality.

Later Patrick curls up comfortably on his side and fits his mouth over Pete’s erection. Pete comes embarrassingly quickly, which only makes Patrick feel guilty of not having touched him enough, instead of feeling like he’s pleased Pete. He lies on his back while Pete eagerly returns the favor and just stares up at the ceiling, counting on one hand the amount of times in the past three months—since he found out he was pregnant—that he’s gotten Pete off.

It takes him forever to come and Pete’s worry that something is wrong only drives him to feel even more guilty and he can’t sleep when Pete finally passes out next to him.

 

\--

 

The living room is covered in half-finished sketches and pictures ripped out of baby magazines when Patrick wakes up. Not only is Greta seated in the middle of it all, but so is Vicky. And Gabe.

“What are you doing?”

Pete looks up from where he’s sketching [Pete can’t draw] and jumps up, dropping his notebook and drags Patrick over.

“There’s the baby-mama!” Gabe says excitedly, pushing himself up.

Patrick pales and turns angry eyes on Pete, “You told him?”

Pete shakes his head, “No—”

“I did,” Vicky says, having the decency to look apologetic. “I swear, I didn’t know you didn’t want anyone else to know until after I told him.”

Patrick opens his mouth but Gabe cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry, man, your secret is safe with me. I promise.”

Patrick sighs and rubs his forehead. “I need coffee,” he tells no one in particular, Pete hurries off into the kitchen while Greta finally loses her ability to stay quiet and begins rubbing his stomach.

“I can’t _believe_ it!”

Vicky seems to lose her boyish edge and is suddenly right there with her, hugging Patrick and touching his stomach. “You’re seriously fucking pregnant, what the hell, dude?”

Patrick can’t help but laugh and then Gabe’s there, pushing the two of them away so he can envelope Patrick in a hug that’s nothing but limbs and Patrick’s face pressed to a too-tall chest. He pats Gabe’s back.

“Godfather Gabe, right?” he grins.

Patrick groans and Pete returns with a mug in his hands which he gives over to Patrick. “Dude, you’re going to have to battle Andy and Joe to the death for that.”

Gabe frowns and then shrugs. “But like, if they both died, it’d be me right?”

Patrick and Pete both eye him skeptically. “So long as they aren’t going to end up missing the next couple days, yes.”

Gabe beams and rubs Patrick’s stomach. “Cool.”

“So what the hell are you guys doing?” Pete drags Patrick towards the living room and shows him. “Baby clothes?” he asks after taking a sip of his coffee.

Pete nods and holds his arms out in a grand, presenting gesture. “Baby Bat, the new child clothing line from Clandestine.”

Patrick chokes.

 

\--

 

The sun’s setting when Pete pulls Patrick into their room and they lay down on top of the new feather-down comforter that Pete had come home with after he, Greta and Vicky went out to begin their baby item hunting expedition.

“Kinda defeats the purpose of having them involved if Pete’s just gonna go out anyway,” Patrick had said, lounging in the theater room with Gabe, playing _NHL Tour_.

Gabe had just shrugged, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Better they think he knocked one of them up than you.”

Patrick wasn’t really sure he agreed but he didn’t argue.

Pete strokes absently at Patrick’s arm, humming softly the chorus of _The [after]Life of the Party_. Patrick smiles and turns his head in closer, breathing deeply Pete’s smell and reaching down to rub his stomach; the baby has been moving a lot the past couple days and it feels like his entire stomach and back are bruised.

“You have any idea on names?” Pete asks quietly after a while, sounding almost dreamy.

Patrick shakes his head. “Not really. I just know we can’t give her initials like mine.”

Pete snorts lightly and turns onto his side, eyes closed, smiling. He nuzzles into Patrick’s neck and places a kiss there. “We can’t call her something weird either. She’s gonna have enough shit on her plate coming from the gay famous couple.”

Patrick is inclined to agree. He just nods. “I’ve always liked the name Jack,” he says after a minute or two of just watching the sun sink lower through the open blinds.

“Too bad it’s not a boy.” Pete rolls onto his back again and tilts his head to the side so he can meet Patrick’s gaze. “People would think I’m way more obsessed with _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ than they already do.”

Patrick laughs and feels Pete’s hand join his on his stomach, rubbing smoothly. “You kinda deserve that. Jack tattoo on your arm, Jack cologne, Jack dolls—”

“Action figures,” Pete cuts him off and Patrick laughs again.

“Whatever, dude, you know what I mean.”

“So? It’s a great movie. And maybe I like the name.”

They’re quiet for a little while, Patrick relaxing under Pete’s oh-so-talented fingers and when the baby begins kicking, he feels it the moment Patrick does; and then he’s there, talking to her, telling her to leave her dad’s kidney’s out of this, causing Patrick to laugh lightly.

And then Pete calls her Jack.

Patrick reaches down and turns Pete’s head until their gazes lock and then Pete’s on top of him, knee between his thighs, rubbing slowly and Pete’s panting against his lips and Patrick asks, “Jack?” before Pete begins pushing his shirt up between sloppy, wet kisses.

“Jack.”

 

\--

 

Somehow between all the men present in the situation, Gabe ends up being the only one able to dismantle the bed in the guest room.

“I swear, you Fall Out Boys are useless,” he huffs, wiping at his forehead and sitting down in the middle of the bed frame to he pop out the woodscrews.

He forces Andy, Joe and Pete to get it down to the basement from there.

Greta has helped Pete pick out some more tasteful items for the room, with Patrick’s input and Joe and Andy just watch them argue over the laptop on the dining room table about how a Halloween themed room would just traumatize the baby.

By the end of the week, the room is mostly set up and Vicky has talked Patrick into allowing Pete to plan a baby shower. Patrick has put strict guidelines on it though, on who can be told and who will just have to be mad at them for not being invited later.

Pete’s just happy that Patrick’s letting him so he doesn’t argue when Patrick tells him that he can’t invite every band signed to Pete’s record label.

 

\--

 

Patrick throws up the morning Joe goes home. Gabe, Vicky and Greta have all returned home to their respective states by then and Pete is left to call Andy again for help.

Andy reminds him that they have a doctor to field all these questions that would know a lot better than he would.

Pete hangs up on him and calls Doctor Gray.

She’s back in Michigan this week but she tells him if Patrick is still throwing in a few hours that she’ll fly out.

Pete doesn’t let Patrick get out of bed and stays with him the entire rest of the day, rubbing his stomach when the baby kicks and changing movies for him when the credits start to roll. Penny remains curled up at Patrick’s side, casting seemingly-worried glances at him every time he makes a move or sound of discomfort.

Pete falls asleep on the floor beside the bed with Hemmy. Patrick doesn’t throw up again.

 

\--

 

“She seriously won’t stop,” Patrick groans, standing in the backyard with Pete while Hemmy chases his favorite ball as Pete throws it for him.

Pete bends down and presses his mouth right to Patrick’s stomach and whispers, “Stop beating up your daddy, Jack.”

She doesn’t stop but then again, Pete theorizes, he whispered so she probably didn’t hear him.

 

\--

 

Patrick wakes Pete up out of spite that night when Jack won’t stop kicking him. Pete stumbles out of bed to get him bottled water and then listens to him bitch until Pete’s practically wide awake.

_I deserve this_ , he repeats over and over in his head. It is, after all, his fault he put his dick up Patrick’s ass and came in him. His fault that Patrick is now pregnant. But then again, Patrick totally wanted it so what is he talking about? Patrick didn’t _have_ to want him; didn’t _have_ to spread his legs.

Pete almost slaps himself. He _loves_ Patrick. He knows he’s fucking lucky Patrick wants anything to do with him at all; or has _ever_ wanted anything to do with him at any point in his life.

Pete finds himself smiling, looking over at Patrick’s agitated form beside him, grumbling and gesturing about something Pete lost track of a few minutes ago.

When Patrick sighs and turns his head to look at Pete, Pete can see how tired he is, eyes red rimmed and blinking slowly. Pete’s mouth twists in a frown and he runs his hand down Patrick’s stomach, waiting only a moment before a fist or an elbow or a foot runs across his palm and Patrick groans.

Pete still thinks it feels like fucking _magic_ but he knows he doesn’t have to feel it all the time like Patrick does, so he pushes himself down and pulls Patrick’s shirt up and begins talking to his stomach.

It only takes a minute or so before the movement slows and then finally stops. Patrick is staring down at Pete in fucking wonder; but he says nothing. Pete doesn’t even grin up at him, doesn’t turn his head at all. He keeps stroking Patrick’s stomach and talks until Patrick falls asleep.

Pete doesn’t realize Patrick has passed out on him until his throat is dry from telling stories and he lifts his head to ask Patrick for a drink of his water.

Pete kisses Patrick’s slack lips gently before helping himself to Patrick’s water and then settling down again to pick up where he left off.

 

\--

 

Patrick awakes a short while later to find Pete still lying against him, only now he’s singing.

Patrick doesn’t move at all and just listens.

Pete continues on, facing away from Patrick, seemingly unaware that Patrick is even awake; he croons his quiet, rough, slightly-off key lullaby to Patrick’s for-once-still stomach.

Patrick closes his eyes and feels the extremely unwanted burn of tears as Pete continues on, running his hand down Patrick’s arm and folding their fingers together when he sings the chorus.

Finally Patrick has to say something. “Are you singing my child distorted love songs?”

Pete doesn’t respond until he’s done, turning his head and looking at Patrick. “Would you expect anything less?”

Patrick gestures him up and Pete kisses him tiredly, stroking his sleep-warm cheek and then dropping his face into Patrick’s neck. “You could sing her _our_ songs, you know.”

Pete shrugs. “She’ll have to hear them for the rest of her life,” he brings his head back up and kisses Patrick again, slower than before, “might as well give her a break now; fuck knows we won’t give her one later. Besides, you do it better than me.”

Patrick grins and Pete curls up against him, slightly cold, and he drops off to sleep almost immediately. Patrick can’t help but wonder just how long Pete has stayed awake to sing their baby into such a complacent, non-kicking place.

But he doesn’t plan on taking it for granted. He nuzzles down into Pete’s hair and drifts back off.

 

\--

 

“When do I get to see the elusive Shrimp Child?”

Pete regrets picking up his phone. He regrets even more the decision he and Patrick made to tell Ryan Ross.

“Don’t call my fucking kid that and maybe you can.”

“You can’t blackmail me,” Ryan says smoothly.

“Find another label.”

“Jesus, you fight dirty.”

“Don’t mess with my kid.”

“Noted.”

“Ryan.”

“I’ll love your baby, Pete. I promise.” Ryan actually sounds like he’s being honest and Pete doesn’t doubt it. Fanboy Ryan wins again.

“I swear, if you tell Urie I’ll kill you.”

Ryan laughs. “I’ll tell no one. Cross my heart.” Pete makes an unimpressed sound. “But seriously, it’s been what? Five months? When do I get to rub the miracle stomach?”

“Patrick will murder you where you stand if you even try,” Pete tells him, completely serious.

“I figured.”

“I don’t know. Soon I guess. Patrick doesn’t want everyone to know. Seriously, our moms don’t even know yet.” Pete sighs and steps out onto the deck, letting the dogs out with him, and heads down the stairs towards the pool as he speaks. He sits and rolls his pant legs up with the phone locked between his ear and shoulder before sliding his feet into the cool water.

Ryan doesn’t seem surprised. “Are you gonna before it’s born?”

“Kinda have to, don’t you think?”

“Your call.” Pete can practically see the shrug.

There’s a comfortable lull for a minute before Ryan speaks again. “Baby shower?”

“So glad you called.” Pete grins down at his fingernails before digging into one with his teeth. “You got a pen ready?”

“For what?”

“Gifts, moron.”

“You two are richer than I am,” Ryan protests.

Pete shrugs and continues working on his asymmetrical thumbnail. “Whatever dude. The only reason you’re rich at all is because of me.” Ryan can’t argue with that so he doesn’t.

There’s a slight rustle and Pete hears a drawer open and close before Ryan sighs, “Ready when you are.”

 

\--

 

Patrick’s twenty-two week ultrasound shows a baby at week twenty-eight development.

Doctor Gray informs them that Patrick will have to be induced at week thirty.

 

\--

 

Pete goes down on him in the shower when they get up the next morning. Patrick has to grasp the railing on the door to keep himself from falling over; he’s so not awake and anywhere near coordinated enough to properly respond so he just lets Pete have his way. He moans contentedly around the length in his mouth when Patrick grasps his slicked-back hair with his free hand and just holds on until he comes and even for a minute after.

Pete slides back up, knees on fire, hands skimming over Patrick’s sides until their mouths are pressed together and Patrick can taste himself but is too absorbed in Pete to actually care.

He waits until Pete turns back around to scrub his hair with a self-satisfied smirk on his face before pressing against his back as best he can with the intrusive curve of his stomach in the way and taking Pete’s dick in hand.

Pete ends up with one hand curled around the faucet and his forehead smashed to the wall, panting and moaning as he spills over Patrick’s hand, right down the drain.

“I’m so in love with you,” Pete whispers into his ear right before turning off the water and offering Patrick his hand in assistance out of the tub.

 

\--

 

Joe comes over with an application for an apartment in Andy’s building and sits himself down at the table to fill it out.

Patrick stares briefly over his bowl of strawberry ice cream and the two liter of Pepsi he has to deal with until Pete returns with the two liter of Coke he’d requested.

He says nothing, watching the way Joe chews on the tip of his pen as he scrolls through his cell for the numbers of people he’s listing as references. Andy’s name is at number one and Patrick’s about to offer either himself or Pete but stops just before the syllables form on his tongue. Joe has his reasons and he’s not going to question it.

Patrick pushes a melting lump of pink around his bowl before taking his glasses off and rubbing hard at his eyes with the fingers of both hands.

Joe looks up. “You all right?”

Patrick nods and Joe looks back down at his application.

“Are you sure you—” Patrick cuts himself off again and Joe doesn’t look back at the papers before him so he continues hesitantly, “are you sure you want to move out here?” Joe keeps on staring. “For this. I mean. For me and Pete.”

There’s a long, extremely awkward silence that follows. Patrick’s suddenly half afraid that Joe is going to ball the papers up and then storm out, never to be heard from again.

_Just the hormones talking_ , he reminds himself.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Joe finally asks, sitting back slightly and tapping his pen cap against the table.

Patrick doesn’t bother mentioning that his entire life and, currently, off-again girlfriend are out in Chicago. He just knows Joe is going to say that this is more important, _they’re_ more important. His sort-of girlfriend can come live with him or he’ll get a new on-again girlfriend; or any number of other things he could say that would cause Patrick to choke on tears he doesn’t even feel forming yet.

Patrick looks back down as he hears the front door open, suddenly not thirsty anymore as Pete bustles in and the rustle of a plastic bag being thrown away and a glass being filled with crushed ice echoes around in the silence floating thick over the table between he and Joe. When Pete sets his drink down in front of him and kisses his forehead he cuts the tension with a, “What’s going on?”

Patrick takes a drink he doesn’t really want before rubbing his eye again and then pulling Pete down into a kiss.

He thanks Joe once Pete has departed for the kitchen again, quiet and unwilling to look at him.

“Hey,” Joe says, frighteningly serious and Patrick looks up. He merely shrugs his shoulders, clearly stating that it’s not a big deal. “I want to do this.”

Patrick excuses himself before he has the chance to get choked up again.

He hates hormones.

 

\--

 

Patrick worries, privately, that he’s going to get depressed when this is all over. He doesn’t know if post-partum depression is a threat—though he doesn’t see why it wouldn’t be an option—or not. He fears what this is going to do to the band, how he’s going to take a child out on tour with them; because he certainly isn’t leaving their daughter behind with a nanny or something. He wonders if this is going to happen again at some point; if he and Pete are going to have to go back to using condoms or if this was just a one-shot deal. He knows he needs to talk to Doctor Gray, ask _her_ these things and not himself; because he sure as fuck doesn’t know the answer to any of them.

Mostly he wonders what his mother is going to say, Pete’s mom. Any of his family. Their fans.

He and Pete have made the decision to come out and let the world know that _hey! We’ve been fucking for the past six and a half years and look! Here’s our baby!_

Patrick closes his eyes and tries not to throw up.

He’s almost to the chair in the corner of the living room where Pete is currently curled up with a blanket over his feet and a torn paperback copy of _Tuesdays with Morrie_ in his hands to tell him that he just can’t do it when Pete looks up and sniffs at him. He folds his page down and abandons it on the table to his left before sitting up and spreading his legs, patting the space between them.

Patrick feels his stomach tighten and then dissolve and his shoulders slump and he’s suddenly sitting with his back pressed to Pete’s chest and Pete’s arms around him and Pete’s reaching up to wipe the corner of his own eye again.

“You shouldn’t read it if it makes you sad,” Patrick says absently, running his fingertips in a circle over the owl’s monocle on Pete’s arm.

Pete just buries his nose in Patrick’s thin hair and breathes deeply. “It’s totally emo,” he starts, “but that kind of death makes me feel more alive.”

Patrick just absorbs that before he turns and Pete presses a hand to his stomach and they kiss slowly.

“You’re right,” Patrick tells him. Pete looks at him intently. “That was emo.”

Pete grins and kisses him again and when he settles down, with the blanket pulled up over them both, Patrick can hardly even wait for the moment to come when he’ll be able to rub it in everyone’s faces just how fucking happy he is. They are. Together.

 

\--

 

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Patrick groans as Pete forces him out of the bedroom and into the hallway. He can hear the people out in the living room. People he knows. People he produces for. People in bands he tours with. His friends. Pete is just grinning at him and when Patrick catches sight of Spencer Smith talking to Alex Suarez Patrick grinds to a halt. “I changed my mind.”

“Patrick—” Suddenly Patrick turns to Pete and shoves him back into the bedroom. “Ow, dude, what?”

Patrick feels like he’s about to puke. “We didn’t invite our moms.”

Pete stares briefly, looking stunned for a moment and then returning to his overly-large grin. “Our moms don’t _know_ yet.” He reaches up to brush Patrick’s hair away from his forehead and Patrick pulls his hat down further.

“Our moms, my mom in particular, are going to disown us when they find out.”

Pete takes Patrick’s shoulders in his hands and sagely tilts his head to the side. “We’ll just tell them we wanted to have a private family thing with them later on.”

Patrick glares at Pete for a long moment before he slumps into Pete suddenly and clutches the back of his shirt. “I can’t do this, Pete.”

A small sigh moves the hair on the back of Patrick’s neck when Pete lowers his head to press a kiss there. “You’re going to do it and you’re going to be fucking perfect at it like you are with everything else.”

Patrick laughs almost bitterly and clenches his eyes.

Pete presses another kiss to his ear and rubs at the small of his back. “I’m serious, babe. You’re fucking golden.”

 

\--

 

No one in the room finds it very surprising when Brendon Urie gushes his excitement and insists on talking to Patrick’s stomach.

“It has to know my voice,” he says before looking up at Patrick with serious, accusing eyes. “Have you been playing it music? You know it’ll seriously be a complete genius if you do that. Not that it wouldn't anyway, being your kid—”

“It’s a girl,” Patrick announces, reaching down to pull Brendon back to his feet, his full height and himself into a tight hug that expels the air in his chest when Brendon squeezes him.

Pete pries Brendon off and hands him over to Andy.

Ryan nudges Pete. “You didn’t tell me it was a girl.”

“We didn’t tell hardly anyone.”

“Except me,” Gabe beams, grabbing Patrick and kissing him full-on.

Pete steps in immediately, forcing Gabe back with a, “Whoa, dude, hands off. Seriously.” Gabe flicks his tongue out and makes a _call me_ motion at Patrick who laughs and lets himself be pulled away by Travis.

“Protect me,” he whispers and Travie laughs, pulling Patrick down onto the couch between himself and William Beckett. “Or not.”

William shows surprising restraint, however, holding back to minor touches and a slight squeal when he feels the baby kick under his hand. Travis keeps an arm around his shoulder and fends off Brendon when he comes back to molest Patrick’s stomach again.

Patrick’s just this side of feeling morbidly overwhelmed when Pete reappears with a flushed glow high on his cheeks that is only ever indicative, on him, of being either post-coital or buzzed. And seeing as how Pete has a beer in his hand, he’s going to assume it’s buzzed.

Patrick stands up and steers him away from everyone, dodging Brendon on his own this time and pulling Pete over to the sliding glass doors. “Are you seriously getting drunk right now?”

“No, dude, no.”

His eyes roll heavily. “Stop drinking.”

“Pat—”

“Stop.”

Pete reaches up to rub his eyes. “This is the first drink I’ve had in fucking three months, Patrick, come on. Our friends are all here, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that _you_ put this together. _You_ wanted to have this fucking thing and _you_ are the fucking host.” He jabs Pete in the chest with each statement. “I’m not entertaining all these people while you suck off a keg today.”

Patrick is suddenly aware that Jon Walker is standing beside him with a contrite look on his face. “I’ll come back later,” he says, taking a step back.

“No, Jon, sorry, hey, it’s good to see you,” Patrick says. Jon hugs him and Pete sulks off.

Patrick notices later that he left the beer behind on the floor.

 

\--

 

Patrick laughs to the point that his sides hurt and he’s hiccupping when Pete holds up an obnoxious gold chain with a picture of Gabe on one side and a pacifier on the other.

“She needs to know Uncle Gabe loves her,” Gabe insists, leaning back against Travis’ legs and crossing his feet at the ankles.

“And _this_ is how you hope to accomplish that?” Pete asks, holding out the glittery chain.

Gabe shrugs. “It’s twenty-four karat, baby! If that ain’t love then I don’t know what love is.”

Travis smacks the back of his head.

Patrick laughs again.

 

\--

 

At the end of the evening Patrick is stacking a set of diamond-encrusted baby-sized hoodies with Travis’ artwork on them and a wide array of baby shoes [from Spencer] in the dresser Greta picked out.

Pete is close behind with an arm-load of stuffed circus animals Brendon presented them with.

“You realize none of those assholes got us anything we actually needed right?” Patrick asks, turning around and closing the drawer with his back.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Pete huffs, drop-kicking a soft, silky elephant across the room. “A baby can never have enough snow boots and flip flops.”

Patrick laughs and rubs his eyes as Pete steps over the pile of Baby Einstein products Alex had given them. He leans down to kiss Patrick and Patrick laughs against his lips. “I think the snow boots were for when we take her to Chicago.”

“And the flip flops?”

Patrick shrugs, winding his arms around Pete’s back and pulling him closer. “They’re from _Jon_. What were you expecting?”

Pete grins, shaking his head and brushing his hair back; Patrick has a brief moment to really look at his face and see how tired he really is. “It was sweet, I guess. All of it. Andy and Joe were pretty practical. And William and his guys started us a nice little college fund.”

“Now we only have to worry about picking out which Ivy League school we want her to go to.”

Patrick smacks Pete’s side lightly. “Don’t be a dick.”

Pete sighs and lowers his head, pressing a kiss to the pulse beating comfortably in Patrick’s throat. Both of his hands press against Patrick’s stomach and neither move.

“One more month,” Pete finally whispers. Patrick nods and kneads at the back of Pete’s neck but doesn’t say anything. “You ready for this?”

Patrick is silent a moment longer before tilting Pete’s head back up and kissing him. “I think so.”

Pete smiles against his mouth and kisses him again, harder, deeper. “Me too,” he breathes when they break apart for air.

There’s a knock at the doorframe and they both turn to see William standing there, shirt too short, exposing his stomach and pants low enough that his hipbones are casting shadows from the light in the hallway onto his jeans.

“Gabe and Travis are passed out on your couch,” he informs them.

“Together?” Patrick asks, eyebrows pulling together.

William rolls his eyes and steps into the room, pushing Pete gently away from Patrick and then folding the shorter man into a hug. “And people think _I’m_ gay.”

Patrick laughs and hugs him back.

“You takin’ off?” Pete asks when William turns to hug him too.

“Yeah, Suarez and I are flying out at ass o’clock tomorrow. We’re just gonna go chill at the airport.”

Pete ruffles his hair and William bats his hands away. “Seriously, I don’t molest your man, don’t touch my hair.”

Pete eyes him suspiciously. “You _sure_ you’re not gay?”

“Says the man who knocked up his boyfriend.”

“Blow me,” Pete grins.

“That ship, much like your chance to get with this,” William says, gesturing down at his ass and heading for the door, “has sailed, my dear Pete.” He turns to Patrick. “Call me when it happens, okay?”

Patrick nods and William waves goodbye before vanishing back out into the house.

 

\--

 

As it turns out Travis and Gabe were not the only two of their friends who decided to stay over without asking. When Patrick goes to toss a blanket over their lounging bodies—on the same couch no less, Gabe sprawled on top of Travis—he nearly has a heart attack when he runs directly into Joe; who informs him that Ryan and Spencer are down in the theater room last he checked.

He gives up and goes to bed.

Pete groans when Patrick climbs in, partially on top of him. “Your friends are leeches.”

Pete grins and throws a tired arm around Patrick’s shoulders, kissing his forehead and curling into him without opening his eyes. “They’re only _my_ friends when they annoy you.”

Patrick’s too tired to agree.

 

\--

 

When Patrick gets up the next morning Pete is hunched over a cup of coffee and talking to Gabe at the table; hood up, head down.

“There’s the man of my dreams!” Gabe says, entirely too happy for—Patrick looks at the clock—one in the afternoon.

Patrick grunts in response.

Andy is wide awake in the kitchen with Travis, sitting on the counter. Travis pulls him into a hug and Patrick lets him. “Tell me there’s more coffee,” he says, looking up over Travis’ arm at Andy.

“Spencer went on a Starbucks run.” Jack kicks and Patrick groans. He reaches down to rub at his stomach.

“You all right?” Travis asks, looking down but not letting go.

Patrick looks up and then shakes him off; suddenly he doesn’t want to be touched by anyone. “Just let me know when he gets back.”

Andy looks over at Travis before sliding off the counter and into the dining room as Patrick makes his way back down the hall to the bedroom.

Pete crawls onto the bed beside him a minute or so later, leaning down to kiss him before twisting their legs together and placing a soothing hand on his stomach.

He says nothing for a long time until it becomes clear that Patrick isn’t going to break the silence at whatever cost.

“You want me to tell them to go?” he asks, lifting his head from Patrick’s chest to look at him.

Patrick shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Pete draws his eyebrows together. “What’s wrong, babe?”

“Nothing, Pete, just—just whatever.”

Pete waits a moment before continuing, “You in pain or something?” Patrick shakes his head against the pillow. “She kicking you a lot?” Patrick rolls over onto his side.

“Nothing’s wrong, Pete, I just want to be alone right now.”

Pete clicks his teeth together, mind whirling briefly before sitting up and pulling his legs free. “I’ll be out in the—”

“No,” Patrick interrupts, reaching out and pulling Pete down against his back until Pete spoons up behind him. “Stay.”

Pete doesn’t move for a little while until Patrick squirms back against him slightly and Pete relaxes. He folds his arm around the body before him and rests his head on his other arm before closing his eyes.

He wakes up a short while later when Gabe knocks on the door to alert them to Spencer’s return.

 

\--

 

Patrick finds himself a lot more agreeable once Gabe and Travis leave and Spencer only hangs around for another hour before hugging Patrick and kissing his stomach.

“You tell anyone I did that,” Spencer threatens in an unthreatening tone as he stands back up and grabs his messenger bad from the back of his chair at the table, “and…” he shrugs, “we lose even more credibility as a good band.”

Pete laughs. “You never had that to begin with.”

Spencer rolls his eyes and places a hand on his hip. “You must have seen something other than Ryan’s ass when you signed us.”

“Touché.”

Spencer kisses Patrick’s cheek and Pete stops just short of molesting him until Spencer is shoving at his shoulders and saying, “Jesus, Pete, I’m just going home, not off to war.”

 

\--

 

Once they’re alone, Pete heads into Jack’s future room and begins opening the various Baby Einstein boxes, looking excitedly at the instructions and piecing random bits of a mobile together.

“Hey, ‘Trick!” he hollers without looking up. “We have any D batteries?”

“Probably not,” Patrick answers, standing in the doorway and causing Pete to jump.

He places an overdramatic hand on his chest. “Way to give me a heart attack.” He immediately brightens when Patrick merely smiles at him. “Come help me put this shit together.”

Patrick stays where he is and purses his lips a moment before taking a step back into the hallway and letting his hand rest on the doorframe. “Let’s do that later.”

He quirks an eyebrow before disappearing and Pete stumbles up after him, sending random plastic pieces and animals flying off his lap.

 

\--

 

“Shit,” Pete groans, rocking harder against Patrick’s back. Patrick merely arches into him and reaches down with his own hand to rub at himself.

“Come on,” Patrick pants, whining when Pete bumps his prostate and clenching his eyes. “Come _on_!”

Pete curses again and presses his damp forehead to Patrick’s shoulder, biting down briefly before batting Patrick’s hand away. “Move, move, lemmie.”

Patrick releases his erection and plants his hand down on the mattress, bracing himself and pushing back into Pete’s thrusts, fast and faster. “Pete,” he gasps, eyes clenched, “harder.”

“Fuck, fuck,” Pete pants, sucking hard at the joint of Patrick’s neck and shoulder, blinking blearily at the dark red mark that blossoms when he pulls away. “Soon?”

Patrick just nods frantically. “Can you just—there, _there_.”

Pete focuses his thrusts and soon Patrick is crying out, arching back into Pete’s chest and coming hard over his hand.

Pete bites down on his lip and rides out the feeling of Patrick contracting around him before reaching down to pull out. Patrick’s hand flies back and grabs his hip. “No, finish,” he rasps out, lowering himself down to his elbows and wiping his damp forehead on his pillow.

It takes a moment for Pete to comply but he forces himself back in and quickly brings himself off, deep inside of Patrick, whispering his name and gasping for air.

“Shit,” Pete breathes, not for the first time, pulling out and flopping down uselessly beside Patrick’s prone form.

Patrick groans lightly and turns over to mirror Pete’s position, staring up at the ceiling for a long minute before reaching for Pete’s hand and lacing them together. Pete leans over him for a kiss and then lays back down, sharing Patrick’s pillow.

It isn’t until their breathing returns to normal that Pete finally asks, “So what was wrong earlier?” Patrick turns his head slightly to look at him out of the corner of his eye. “With everyone being here, you know.” He waves vaguely and waits out the stony silence Patrick presents him with.

“I don’t know,” Patrick finally sighs, rolling carefully onto his side, placing a hand on his stomach and rubbing gently until Pete takes over for him and he just closes his eyes and relaxes; muscles going loose and the afterglow of sex leaving him warm and useless.

Pete scoots even closer and plants a gentle kiss on Patrick’s nose. “You can tell me, you know. If you don’t want anyone else around or something. I can tell Andy and Joe to take a break for a while or whatever.”

“No, it’s not that,” Patrick says, feeling slightly exasperated, opening his eyes again to focus on Pete; he’s too close and Patrick leans back slightly. “I don’t know, it’s not Joe and Andy, it’s not you. I want you guys around, it’s just—” he cuts himself off with a frustrated sigh and Pete folds his arm up over Patrick’s back and presses their foreheads together.

“It’s all right,” he says quietly.

Patrick shakes his head. “It’s not, they’re our friends, _my_ friends. I just—I want it to be us, I guess. Right now, anyway.”

Pete is silent a minute, letting that sink in before responding, “Me, Joe and Andy?”

“Mostly just you.” Patrick nods. “Maybe my mom, too,” he adds on a quiet afterthought.

The silence that settles over them after that statement is thick and almost uncomfortable. Pete twists against the sheets and turns his head back up to look at the ceiling. Patrick waits.

“Time to tell them, I guess?” Patrick hesitates before nodding against the pillow. Pete sighs and looks back at him again, taking a moment to tuck a sweaty lock of hair behind Patrick’s ear before speaking again. “Can we do it tomorrow?” Patrick’s mouth lifts in a smile and Pete kisses him hard.

“Tomorrow.”

\--

Patrick wakes up at five in the morning to a severe round of kicking from his daughter that literally knocks his breath away. He scrambles to sit up and gasps hard, pressing in on his stomach.

Pete’s there a split second later, leaning down and whispering, “Stop, baby, stop.”

She doesn’t and Patrick feels like he’s going to rupture a kidney or throw up or both. Pete rubs at his stomach and fumbles for his phone, intent on calling Doctor Gray when Patrick finally takes a staggered breath and the feeling stops.

“You all right?” Pete asks, dropping his phone and hurriedly laying Patrick back down, pressing at his stomach to feel the residual movement settle.

Patrick nods, a cold sweat still beading on his forehead; he mops at it absently and Pete leans in for a kiss. “Yeah, yeah.”

“You sure?” Pete’s tone is rushed and worried. “You want me to call Doctor Gray?”

Patrick shakes his head and Pete asks again. “I’m fine, Pete, seriously. Just lay with me.”

Pete bites his lip and looks back at his phone. “You _sure_?”

Patrick just sighs and pulls Pete down against him. “Sing to her so she knows we’re not mad at her.”

Pete’s lips are dry and crack when he smiles but he pulls up Patrick’s shirt and presses a kiss to his side anyway before launching into a quiet rendition of _Clothes Off!_. Patrick smacks his arm and Pete grins up at him and breaking into a more-than-slightly off-key _Suspicious Minds_.

Patrick falls asleep listening.

 

\--

 

“She didn’t believe me,” Pete grumbles, dropping his phone on the floor and climbing onto the bed beside Patrick, kissing his stomach before curling up against the smaller form beside him.

“Can you blame her?” Patrick asks, folding an arm around Pete’s shoulders and letting Pete gently rub his stomach.

“I guess not.” Pete is pouting, Patrick can hear it. They’d finally decided to tell just their mothers for now. “At least _your_ mom wants to come out here and see for herself.”

Patrick pushes Pete onto his back and half-straddles him, holding his hands down to the bed; Pete folds their fingers together. “Your mom will come around,” he assures quietly, his voice strong. “This _is_ kind of slightly unbelievable.”

Pete concedes with a slight nod and then leans up off the pillow until Patrick drops his head and kisses him softly.

“We’ll be fine,” Pete whispers, pulling one of his hands free and Patrick down on top of him by the neck with it.

“That’s what you keep telling me,” Patrick says with a slight grin.

Pete pulls Patrick down until they’re laying side by side with Pete’s leg thrown over Patrick’s, nuzzling into his hair and kissing him between sentences. “You should never doubt Pete Wentz. I know all.”

Patrick shoves him slightly but grins nonetheless when Pete presses their mouths together and drops his hand to rub between his legs. Patrick gasps and Pete rolls him over, covering his body with his own.

 

\--

 

Two days later Patrick hears rustling and then a crash come from Jack’s nursery.

Normally he would suspect Pete but Pete is still in bed. Patrick pushes the door fully open, expecting to find that one of the shelves Gabe had put up had fallen down, resulting in a mess of children’s books or something equally harmless.

What he finds is Hemmy standing in the middle of the room, gnawing on the leg of the tipped-over crib and a broken mirror beside him.

Patrick’s yelling wakes Pete up in time to save his dog from certain death.

It takes Pete a half hour and the promise of cupcakes in the kitchen to calm Patrick down. Hemmy is forever banned from the nursery and Patrick ignores him for another day before he’s laying on the couch and Hemmy leaps up to lay beside him; resting his head on Patrick’s stomach and looking up at him with his sad puppy eyes.

Patrick grumbles to himself but spends the next two hours smoothing his hand over Hemmy’s head and scratching lightly behind his ears.

Pete comes home from doing what he refers to as ‘incognito baby supply gathering’ and leans down, kissing him solidly on the mouth and then whispering into his ear, “If you can’t stay mad at my dog you’ll never be able to stay mad at baby Wentz.”

Patrick pinches his ass when he walks away, causing him to squeal and Hemmy to snuff awake and scatter off the couch to go bite at Pete’s ankles and demand attention. Pete glowers for a moment but bends down to pick his dog up. Patrick scoops Penny up off the floor and turns on his side, curling up with her in Hemmy’s absence.

 

\--

 

The night before Patrick’s mom is set to arrive, his stomach begins to ache. It’s not much different from the aches he’s felt before but he begins thinking about the false contractions Doctor Gray had told him could start anywhere near the end of his pregnancy and he isn’t comforted when Pete rubs at his belly.

When Pete asks him if he’s okay, after shrugging Pete’s arm off from his shoulders as they lounge around on the couch watching TV, he just says he’s feeling antsy and wants to be left alone for a while.

Patrick retreats to the bedroom to read while Pete stays on the couch sighing heavily every few minutes to a sympathetic Hemmy who just licks his hand.

 

\--

 

Pete is still awake, absently gnawing on his index fingernail and staring at his laptop screen when he thinks he hears Patrick call his name. He pauses The Killers and listens quietly, watching the clock above the dining room table tick on past six am. He’s just about to click the play button again when he hears it for sure this time.

Patrick sounds panicked.

Pete scoots away from the table so fast he almost knocks his chair over.

“What, what is it?” His heart leaps into his throat when he pushes the bedroom door open and Patrick is bracing himself on the dresser with one hand on his stomach. He lurches forward and Pete grabs him.

“Gonna throw up,” Patrick pants, forehead covered in a thickening sheen of sweat. Pete helps him quickly into the bathroom and down to his knees before he vomits.

Between retches, Patrick rests his head on the corner of the counter and closes his eyes, groaning every few seconds.

Pete is on the phone to Doctor Gray already.

Patrick is dry heaving by the time she answers and Pete just keeps petting back his hair and fighting down the urge to throw up himself. What if something is wrong with the baby or Patrick or both of them? What if this is what happens when someone has a miscarriage?

Pete seriously feels like he’s going to be sick.

When he explains what’s going on Doctor Gray speaks hurriedly. “He’s going early.”

Pete’s stomach falls right out of him, he’s sure. “Early what?” he barely manages.

“Mr. Wentz, calm down.” His panic is obviously more evident than he thought because she can hear it from Michigan and Patrick is staring up at him worriedly.

“What’s wrong?” Patrick asks, forcing himself to stand up and then crying out when his stomach clenches so, _so_ hard.

Pete steadies him. “You gotta get dressed.”

“Mr. Wentz, get him to the hospital _now_.” He can hear the muffled sounds of Doctor Gray speaking to someone; her husband, Pete thinks, explaining that she has to go. He doesn’t actually know if she’s married or not. Funny, he’d never examined her ring finger before. “I’m booking a flight out immediately. I’ll call ahead to the hospital and then call you right back with the name of the surgeon you ask for at the front desk.”

Pete, by now, has helped Patrick tug a hoodie on and is kneeling on the floor before him, tying his shoes with shaking fingers, the phone cradled between his head and shoulder. “How can we be sure—” Pete cuts himself off and closes his eyes, still feeling the urge to be sick. “I don’t want anyone but you doing it.”

“Mr. Wentz, there’s no time. You have to get him there immediately. That baby has nowhere to go.” Her voice is calm and steady and Pete wishes he had just a fucking _ounce_ of that to project onto Patrick. He needs to be brave, he knows this. He swallows hard and stands up.

“How do we know this doctor won’t squeal to some tabloid about this?” he asks, grabbing one of his own hoodies off the rack beside the bed and quickly exchanging his boxers for a pair of jeans.

“Mr. Wentz,” she says, making it sound like a question. Pete is silent a beat while he toes on his shoes and stuffs his wallet into his back pocket. “Hippocratic Oath.”

 

\--

 

Pete isn’t the least bit soothed by the fact that their surgeon, Doctor Lewis, seems to be extremely confident in what he’s about to do. He’s able to coax Patrick into sitting down on the edge of the bed in the private delivery room and starts to explain that he’ll be taken for surgery in just under a half hour. Patrick is still clutching his stomach and Pete’s hand as he lists his medicinal allergies and listens patiently as Doctor Lewis informs them that due to the unusual nature of Patrick’s pregnancy and the extremely high risk factor, Pete will not be allowed into the delivery room.

Patrick loses his composed manner instantly, face going red and sweating even more as he pulls Pete closer.

Pete just asks for them to be left alone for a few minutes.

When Doctor Lewis leaves, the door closing audibly behind him, Patrick turns to Pete and grabs his face in both hands, shaking and cold.

“I can’t do this, Pete, I can’t; I need you in there with me.” Pete reaches up and takes Patrick’s hands in his. Somehow he knows that had this happened to him, he’d be doing the exact same thing right now, begging Patrick to do something, to just make the doctor change his mind, only ten thousand times worse. But it’s not him, it’s Patrick. And no matter how freaked the fuck out Patrick is, Pete knows that he’s taking it better than Pete himself would.

“It’s all right,” Pete whispers and Patrick just pulls him into a hard kiss.

“I can’t.”

Pete stops the shaking of his head with one hand and presses the other to Patrick’s stomach. When their eyes finally meet Pete nods. “You’re gonna go in there and you’re gonna do this and you’re gonna be fucking incredible and come out okay and our baby’s gonna be okay. You’ll be amazing at this, like every other fucking thing you do,” Pete continues in a harsh, honest whisper, eyes brimming and blinking rapidly to clear them. They can’t both be crying; Pete needs to be strong but Patrick needs to be stronger. “You are fucking _golden_.”

Patrick kisses him again and Pete doesn’t pull away until Doctor Lewis returns and directs Patrick to change into a hospital gown.

 

\--

 

When he leans in for one more kiss and lets go of Patrick’s hand just outside of the gray double-doors clearly marked _Medical Staff Only_ , Pete feels like he’s letting go for good.

 

\--

 

Pete calls Andy first and then Joe. He calls Patrick’s mom, who changes her flight to one out in three hours; he calls his own mom, who seems to finally believe him when he cracks and cries in the hard, thinly-cushioned chair in the waiting room. She books a flight out a couple hours after Patrick’s mother.

Pete forces himself to wait, to stay seated, not to pace or wander or fucking run around the parking lot. He’s jittery and still thinks he’s going to throw up when Joe arrives. Pete throws his arms around him, hard, and Joe returns the force. Pete closes his eyes and presses his forehead to Joe’s shoulder, aware that his face is still red from crying and completely uncaring.

He doesn’t let go until Andy shows up a couple minutes later.

Even then he just trades one violently supportive hug for the next.

And while Pete knows he promised everyone who knew about the baby that he’d call when it finally happened, he just can’t bring himself to do it. With Andy on one side of him and Joe on the other, he sinks forward and buries his face in his hands to do the math.

Today Patrick is exactly twenty-three weeks. With his advanced state of development and growth this puts him at seven months. The baby, on top of all of the irregularities of its conception and delivery methods, is two utterly whole, entire and complete months early.

Pete clenches his eyes when the tears return, hot and angry against his eyelids, he sniffs hard and doesn’t reject the hand that Joe places on his back.

He prays.

 

\--

 

Pete remembers later that he expected it to take a lot longer than it did. But no, Patrick is in surgery for all of forty-five minutes before a nurse emerges and pulls Pete aside and it all goes to hell from there.

Pete’s head spins with vague recognition of words like _accidental_ and _birth hypoxia_ and _possible cerebral palsy_.

He actually comes back to himself sitting down with Joe shaking him violently by the shoulder, “Pete, for _fuck’s sake_ , come _on_!” he sounds urgent. He supposes everything feels a lot more urgent when you’re looking at Patrick’s blood on a nurse’s scrubs.

He blinks when Andy smacks the back of his head _hard_.

“I have to call Doctor Gray,” he’s able to choke out, fishing in his pocket for his phone and almost dropping it several times before finally pressing it to his ear, trying to keep his arm from shaking.

He hears the nurse telling him there isn’t time but _fuck_ there _has_ to be time. He can’t do this, he can’t bring himself to reason why they’ve even asked him for an executive decision when they could ask Patrick. What’s happened to Patrick that he can’t give the okay on medical decisions?

He barely swallows bile in time to practically yell-sob everything that’s been told to him into the phone before he has to pace away and press his face to a wall and cry.

Doctor Gray is silent for a split second, apparently able to comprehend that the baby was deprived of oxygen for several reasons and the almost experimental procedure offered is the only option.

“Tell them to do it, Mr. Wentz.” Her voice is calm and Pete can’t help the pathetic whimper that bursts free of him. He feels his back prickle and his arms tense.

“They’re going to fucking freeze her,” he grinds out.

“Pete,” it’s the first time he can ever remember her calling him by his first name, “it’s the only option.”

Pete’s fingernails dig into the palm oh his hand so hard it makes his eyes water further and he turns his head to wipe his face on the sleeve of his hoodie. He sniffs hard, twice. “Will it work?”

“It might.”

“Might?”

“There’s about a forty-four percent mortality rate.”

Oh, Pete is going to throw the fuck up, right here with a bloodied-up nurse, Andy and Joe watching him; all over himself; and then fold to his knees in it and cry. He’s never felt so fucking weak in his entire life; he has _no control_.

“I can’t do it.”

“Pete, you have to.”

Pete shakes his head and bites down hard on his lip to keep it from fucking _quivering_. “…can’t.”

“Do you want this baby?”

Pete’s heart stutters in his chest and he opens his eyes. He thinks about Patrick and the past seven months and the _six years_ they’ve had together before that. Them as a couple; them as friends. Them as _everything_.

“More than anything.”

“Then give them the okay.”

Pete nods as he agrees and barely manages to tell the nurse that he’s giving his approval for hypothermia treatment of his newborn baby.

 

\--

 

He’s not allowed to see Jack but he’s allowed to see Patrick in the recovery room. He’s under heavy observation, they’re not alone by far but that doesn’t stop Pete from pushing his oxygen mask aside to press a desperate kiss to his lips.

“Please don’t touch that,” someone says.

He replaces it and folds back, taking Patrick’s clammy hand in his own and petting it, reaching up with his other to wipe at his damp face and sniff again.

Patrick blinks warily at him. His expression is vacant and Pete figures he’s still doped up from the anesthetics. He reaches out to stroke Patrick’s hair back and kiss his forehead; more tears come but he doesn’t fight or wipe them dry.

It takes a solid ten minutes for Patrick’s eyes to open fully and another fifteen before he’s able to look up at Pete like he actually knows who he is. A few more and he’s reaching up to pull his oxygen mask away and looking slightly frantic. His skin is still far too pale and Pete vaguely wonders if he’s had a blood transfusion or something. Probably, he reasons, considering the nurse from before.

“Where’s my baby?” he asks quietly.

Pete is barely able to tell him.

 

\--

 

They aren’t allowed to even hold her before they have to give her name to Doctor Gray, who arrives a few hours later. Patrick lets Pete pick out her middle name and just prays it’s nothing like Grace or Hope or something stupid like that. Just because she’s a miracle baby doesn’t mean she needs a messiah name.

Pete ends up giving her an epically long name—just like her father; one of them anyway—and then curling up on top of the sheets of Patrick’s hospital bed and staring at the wall.

“I wish we could just see her,” Pete whispers after a while. “I don’t think it’d be this fucking hard if we knew what she looked like.”

Patrick’s not sure that makes sense but at the same time he knows it makes more sense than anything that’s happened to them thus far. He and Pete have had a baby together. He wants to fucking see her too.

All, as he’s told, six pounds and three ounces of her.

 

\--

 

Finally, _finally_ , after two sleepless nights Doctor Gray tells them that the treatment is working. She didn’t freeze to death and the hypothermia has fended off her chances at cerebral palsy. She’s going to be a normal, healthy baby.

 

\--

 

Jack’s been moved to the CCU but Patrick is up in his pajama bottoms and hospital gown, complete with heart monitor in the front pocket, and a robe Pete had Joe go out and buy for him. They make their way down two floors and through the white double doors slowly; Patrick can’t walk very fast because of his healing incision, but he wants to go the moment he’s given the okay.

Hospital regulations won’t allow the both of them into the critical care nursery at the same time so Pete insists on Patrick going first and waits outside with his forehead pressed to the window, watching as Patrick washes his hands in the sink by the door and then follows a nurse over to their daughter.

Pete watches him watch her and vaguely realizes he feels like he’s going to cry. But he doesn’t.

The nurse reaches in and carefully lifts Jack out of the incubator and hands her over to Patrick. Pete fumbles for his cell phone, snapping a picture quickly, realizing he doesn’t have his digital with him. But he doesn’t have time to be angry with himself because Patrick looks up and over at him holding his baby, _their_ baby and he’s crying and smiling and it’s just too much for Pete to take. He lifts his hands and presses one to the glass and the other to his heart and mouths, _I love you_.

When it’s Pete’s turn in, he washes his hands and follows the same nurse, feeling like his knees are going to give the fuck out. He can’t breathe or swallow or blink of any of the usual bodily functions that used to come involuntarily to him as he looks down for the first time on Jack. It feels like slow motion, the nurse placing her very gently in his arms and her tiny, tiny body wiggling a little against his bare arms and… and it’s everything. _She’s_ absolutely _everything_.

He looks up and out the window at Patrick and Patrick is smiling in at him with a hand clenched in his robe on his chest and the other on the glass. Pete smiles back and realizes there’s tears rolling down the sides of his nose and just sniffs, not willing to move the baby in his arms to attempt to brush his face dry.

Jack’s fist shakes and she twitches again and Pete says, “Hey baby,” whispers it, really. He sniffs again and brings his index finger up and over her small fist and gazes at the ID bracelet. He’s not sure how they got Jack Lily Briar Stump-Wentz onto it, but there it is, looking back at him from his daughter’s wrist.

He finds himself suddenly wanting to laugh.

He’s a father. This is his _baby_. His baby with Patrick. _Patrick_.

He leans down and presses his lips to her forehead and tells her for the first time just how much he fucking loves her.

 

\--

 

The hospital holds Patrick for another day before releasing him and Jack into Pete’s care. It takes Pete fifteen minutes to make sure the car seat is buckled in before Patrick’s mom shoos them both out of the way and does it herself. A nurse comes out to check their work and gives them the go-ahead. She watches Patrick buckle Jack in and the nurse waves them off with a smile.

Joe is practically buzzing, waiting in the driveway when they get home. Pete had called to tell him and Andy that Patrick and the baby were being released today and Andy isn’t far behind Joe. Both of them are forced to wait their turns, however, when both Patrick and Pete’s moms steal her away from all of them for a few minutes before Patrick’s palms begin to itch and he takes her back.

Later, after Jack’s been fed her bottle and she’s about to nod off Patrick lets Joe hold her. He doesn’t laugh when Joe talks baby talk, because he knows he’s already done more than enough of that and will continue to do so. Andy just gives her a little pep-talk about how amazing he’s going to make sure she grows up to be. That and he tells her not to cry too much because her mom is going to be tired. Pete smacks the back of his head and takes his child back.

Pete’s mom is on a flight out the next evening but Patrick wants his mom to stay for a couple more days.

Jack sleeps in their room in a bassinet right next to Patrick’s side of the bed and neither one of them get to sleep, listening to her breathe, and getting up together to feed her every couple hours until well into the next morning.

 

\--

 

After a couple days Patrick begins sleeping with Jack on his chest. Pete’s absolutely petrified that Patrick is going to throw her off onto the floor or roll over on top of her in the middle of the night. But Patrick doesn’t move at all. Pete knows this because he’s stayed up for three nights watching Patrick sleep, ready to make a diving catch at any moment.

When they settle down after Jack’s bath and her dark little eyes are starting to gloss over with sleepiness Pete leans in and nuzzles her face. Her eyes squint up as she opens her mouth in a tiny, toothless grin and lets out a loud breath Pete just knows would be a laugh if she were capable.

Pete kneels beside Patrick on the bed, watching Patrick smile and watch him out of his peripheral, as he takes Jack’s little hands in his and feels her fingers curl around his thumbs.

“You look more and more like your daddy every day,” he tells her in a coo, leaning in to kiss her cheeks, then her nose and her forehead and then up to kiss Patrick.

“I hope you mean you,” Patrick mumbles, dropping a kiss onto the balding top of Jack’s head. Cradle cap has already claimed her fuzzy baby hair and it’s starting to fall out. Patrick had absolutely _freaked_ out, thinking she’d somehow inherited his balding scalp until Pete had called his mom and she’d assured him this happens to all babies.

Pete just shakes his head and continues stroking his fingers over Jack’s wrists and the backs of her hands. “I mean you,” he says before looking back down at their daughter. “Your dad is a short-tempered, self-depreciative asshole sometimes,” Patrick interrupts him with something about not cursing in front of the sensitive little ears, but Pete continues on, “and I’m working on that, but you should know that your dad,” he uses his index finger to point at Patrick over Jack’s shoulder, “that one, is amazing.” Pete can see Patrick’s downcast smile. “With any luck you’ll turn out more like him than me.”

Patrick silences him by reaching out and drawing Pete up into a slow, easy kiss until Jack squirms and Patrick slides out of bed to change her diaper one more time before settling down for the next however many hours it takes to get her to sleep.

 

\--

 

Later, after the baby’s fallen back asleep in Pete’s arms, Patrick rolls onto his side and looks over at Pete. The two just stare at one another for a while before Pete curls in slowly and Patrick places an arm over his hips.

“I have no idea who the fuck decided I got to be this lucky,” Pete whispers, looking between Patrick and the little body wrapped up in two baby blankets in his arms and then down at Penny and Hemmy who have taken up residence on the foot of the bed. He looks back at Patrick as he continues, “If anyone knows my potential to fuck us up, it’s you—”

“Don’t,” Patrick stops him, “just don’t, okay?”

Pete shakes his head. “It’s not that. You know what I’m like and who I am. That means you also know how hard I can work at this, at _not_ fucking us up.” He glances back down and just focuses on feeling Jack move slightly, her breath, the tiny rise and fall of her chest, the feel of her heartbeat against his arm. And then he turns back to Patrick and continues on in the same whisper. “I want this. I’ve been in love with you since you were sixteen.”

Patrick is silent a while before he moves his head to Pete’s shoulder and kisses his daughter’s head before taking Pete’s fingers and twisting his own through them. “I know.” He shrugs. “It’s always been mutual.”

Pete laughs and Patrick can hear the relief mixed into the serious mood breaker and then they fall silent for a while before Patrick is the one to continue. “I can’t wait to share her with the fucking world.”

Pete licks his bottom lip and stares down at Patrick’s head and then Jack’s. “You know that means we’re actually going to have to tell the world that we’ve managed to have a baby somehow together, right?”

“I don’t want to tell people she’s adopted.” Patrick’s voice has a serious tone of finality to it but Pete feels the exact same way. They fall quiet again.

“We’ll figure something out. I promise.”

Patrick nods against his chest. Pete can tell he’s falling asleep so he goes silent and lets his own eyes close. Pete vaguely feels Hemmy move slowly up the bed and when he opens his eyes he’s rested his head on Patrick’s thigh. Penny, not to be outdone, squirms past him to nuzzle against Patrick’s shoulder. Pete smiles before closing his eyes again.

 

\--

 

In the end Pete convinces his sister to go along with the story that he and Patrick had wanted a baby and she’d been artificially inseminated with Patrick’s child; this way Jack has both of their DNA and a reason to resemble the both of them when, six months later Pete makes a call to his manager.

_Rolling Stone_ bids fervently for the story and they appear on the cover, Patrick sitting cross-legged in jeans and a t-shirt with a fedora perched on his head and his daughter in his arms, smiling up at the camera. Pete’s seated beside him, pressed to his side, one arm out behind them and the other curled high and possessive over Patrick’s thigh, looking down at Jack with a proud grin on his face. Hemmy is laying on his belly in front of both of them while Penny stands on her back legs, front paws braced on Patrick’s arms, trying to look at what he’s holding.

The bright pink text on the bottom left corner of the cover over the photo reads:  
_The New American Family  
Fall Out Boy rockers Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump welcome baby Jack_

Inside there is a five page article devoted to them and six black and white pictures with four smaller color ones. Pete managed not to get shirtless in any of them, even though one of the pictures is of Patrick holding a sleeping Jack against him with one, firm, steady hand and the other curled around the hem of Pete’s shirt, holding it down as Pete tries to tug it up; he’s grinning, Pete is laughing.

Another is of the two of them without Jack, facing one another with Pete’s arms draped loosely over Patrick’s shoulders, one of Patrick’s hands reaching up to hold onto Pete’s elbow. Their foreheads are pressed together and Patrick’s eyes are closed while Pete looks down at him with a small, worshipful smile on his face.

> from _Rolling Stone_ magazine; page 40:  
>  Sitting across from the new parents was a humbling experience; watching Patrick rock and hum his daughter to sleep when the movement around us woke her up brought a smile to my face before I’d even begun the actual interview.
> 
> “It was just time,” Pete says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs at the ankle. “We love our kid and we weren’t ever really planning on not telling people about her.” He sits forward with a grin and gestures to the bundle of blankets in his partner’s arms. “I mean have you seen her? She’s pretty fucking adorable.”
> 
> I’m inclined to agree as Patrick picks up where Pete left off. He’s even more the proud father than Pete, if at all possible. He isn’t the gloating, obnoxious, in-your-face type but the beam in his voice is evident. “There’s always going to be that proverbial line in the sand, you know? Our lives aren’t open books for whoever wants to take a look. The only reason we’re even letting people know is because we want them to, we want our daughter to grow up not feeling like she’s our secret or something.”
> 
> I ask if they fear public backlash and they both begin shaking their heads and speaking at once.
> 
> “This is our baby and our life. If people don’t like it they can fuck the fuck off.”
> 
> Patrick gives a pat to Pete’s leg before continuing on a slight bit more eloquently, “We don’t care. We’re doing this for us and for her. No one else.”
> 
> Their band-mates offer their support, they both say. “Joe and Andy are our best friends. They knew before our parents knew.” Pete says, arms folded and looking serious. 
> 
> “They knew before everyone,” Patrick interrupts. Pete nods again and reaches over to squeeze Patrick’s shoulder. His arm stays put for the remainder of our hour together.  
> 

Andy and Joe are both quoted in the article, via phone interviews.

> from _Rolling Stone_ magazine; page 43:  
>  Guitarist Joe Trohman gave an impassioned, “They make each other happy and that’s no one’s fucking business except theirs. I love them both, they’re my brothers and I loved their kid before she was born. We’re more than just a band, we’re more than ‘Oh my god that guy’s gay’ and ‘Oh my god that one’s straight’, none of that matters. The music should be the focus of what we do, not who had what for lunch or who’s dating who. What’s really important is the fact that I’m going to be the best godfather ever.”
> 
> While drummer Andy Hurley expressed similar sentiments he also added, “I’m surprised anyone’s shocked, really. They’ve been molesting each other on stage for years. It’s not like they were hiding or lying, so I don’t see why anyone would have any reason to get all up in arms about it. It’s not anyone else’s business, anyway.” And when the conversation turned to his bandmate’s claim over godfather to baby Jack, the drummer responded fiercely. “Joe’s delusional. I’m the godfather, he’s the godmother.”  
> 

It sells more issues than anything in rock magazine history.

 

\--

 

Pete doesn’t even try to avoid reading the feedback on the article. People are either intensely thrilled, spouting things like, “I knew it! I knew they were together!” or absolutely disgusted, promising them eternal hellfire for corrupting America’s youth.

But Pete has never let something like that stop him before, so he continues on with Patrick and his daughter, happier than ever before.

He’s hardly sleeping, Patrick is even worse, but it’s just so worth it. They take turns getting up to feed and change her. Patrick is better at getting her to fall asleep, singing under his breath and walking her around the house when she fusses and fidgets. Pete is better at getting her to eat and calm down when she cries. Jack is a fairly well-mannered baby, but when she starts crying, it’s obvious she’s got Patrick’s lung capacity.

Penny is mostly curious about getting to sniff and see her, Hemmy is grumpy and ignores Pete for the first few weeks. But when Pete rolls around on the floor with him and scratches his belly for a while, while Jack is napping with Patrick in the bedroom, he laves several licks to Pete’s face; Pete mostly figures that means he’s been forgiven.

 

\--

 

They’ve made it five months with only minimal paparazzi annoyance—photos of Patrick carrying a bundled up Jack out of a Whole Foods and a few random shots of her sleeping in her car seat with Pete at the wheel are the only things to have made it to print in magazines. But the never-ending demand for pictures of them out together, or just of Jack herself, doesn’t let up.

When Pete almost runs someone down in the street, being practically chased to his car while making a Starbucks run, he decides to do something about it.

He approaches Patrick with the idea while he’s sitting on the couch, Jack curled in his arm, head against his chest, breathing in her shallow baby wheeze, Patrick channel surfing.

Penny attacks Pete’s shoelaces when he sits down and Pete reaches to scoop her up, rubbing at her belly. He leans in to press a slow, wet kiss to Patrick’s mouth, before dropping a chaste one to the top of Jack’s head. Her hair has grown in fairly well, absolutely jet black, shiny and smooth. Pete nuzzles in for a second and stops when she shifts, Patrick shooting him a warning glance.

“I’ve been thinking,” Pete says, releasing Penny, but she merely stays sitting on his lap.

“About what?” Patrick whispers.

Pete takes the hint. “I almost killed a stalkerazzi after getting us coffee.”

“Probably should have.”

Pete laughs a little leaning in as close as he dares, not wanting to wake up their daughter. “I think they’ll let up if we stage some pictures for them.”

Patrick looks sharply over at him. “You want us to sell pictures to them?”

“Not pictures, our time, really. Other people do it. Remember when Gwyneth Paltrow wanted those dudes to leave her alone so she let them take pictures of her walking with her kid?”

“Apple,” Patrick says absently.

Pete rolls his eyes. “I think maybe they’d let up a little if we gave them that.”

Patrick is silent, he even mutes the TV while he thinks, chewing on his lip and casting a long, loving glance down at Jack. He shifts his fingers in the blanket he’s got her wrapped up in. Finally he says, “I don’t want to sell her, Pete. I’ll _never_ sell her.”

“No, ‘Trick, seriously. I’d never. I just want them to leave us alone for a while.” He reaches across Patrick’s lap to take his free hand and squeezes it; both of their palms are a little sweaty. “We sell this little bit of time and we get the important parts to ourselves.” Patrick looks at him and Pete returns it evenly. “You know it’s always going to be like this. We gotta play the game.”

Patrick is quiet a moment before he says, “Is this where you make some comment about never losing and then we put on our game faces and go to war with the gossip mags?”

Pete laughs, sharp, unsuspecting of the dry comment; Jack jolts awake, startled, and blinks up at Patrick before letting out a small whine.

Patrick is able to croon her back to sleep with a few soft verses and gentle rocking motions. He glares at Pete when she settles in against him again. Pete says, “Sorry.”

It’s a while before Patrick sighs and just says, “Okay.”

 

\--

 

Pete has his manager get in touch with two of the most aggressive paparazzi that Pete can identify by name—he broke one of their cameras once—and sets up a time for them to photograph Pete and Patrick out.

They visit with Gabe, who is in town doing a guest DJ spot at the newest LA hotspot, for lunch. Gabe heads off a little while before, promising to stop by before he flies back home and Pete unwraps Jack until he can prop her up on his shoulder and she can look out if she wants. But she’s fast asleep and turns her face into Pete’s neck before they even set foot outside.

“Ready?” Pete asks. Patrick just nods tightly and sticks close to Pete’s side.

Both of the cameramen are waiting outside. Pete walks slowly, both hands on Jack’s back, rubbing gently and mumbling quiet soothing words of nonsense into her ear. Pete pretends he can feel her smile in her sleep and he smiles too.

They stop halfway to the car and Pete carefully hands Jack over to Patrick and they finish the walk. Pete stops the paparazzi from getting any closer when they make to follow. Patrick buckles Jack into her car seat and then covers her with a blanket.

“That’s enough,” Pete says warningly, his patience stretched thin from stress and the two cameramen actually thank him and walk off without incident.

Patrick slouches in the passenger seat with the bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers. He doesn’t speak until they hit the expressway. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do when she’s a teenager and we can’t be with her all the time.”

Pete just takes his hand and kisses the back of it; he doesn’t let go as he says, “We’ll worry about that later, ‘Trick. We’ve got time.”

Patrick squeezes his hand.

 

\--

 

They have a small celebration with their moms on Jack’s six month birthday. Both of them fly out and spend the weekend, fawning over and cooing at every single spit bubble she blows. Patrick and Pete spend almost the entire three days asleep.

Their moms just laugh and tell them to get used to it.

 

\--

 

“So big!” Pete says excitedly, clapping for Jack when she squirms around and lifts her head up. “Patrick, she’s doing it! Patrick look!”

Patrick is already looking, in fact, he’s recording it. “I see, Pete. Good girl, Jack!”

She shifts and looks up at Patrick. He waves and her tiny eyes squinch up in a grin before she practically drops her head right back down onto the blanket she’s laying on.

“Oh, no, fall down,” Pete says, reaching out to pick her up, standing her on wobbly legs. “Tell daddy to turn off the camera and get down here!” Pete continues in baby talk.

Patrick rolls his eyes but clicks off the camera and moves to sit down beside Pete. He leans down and bites gently at Jack’s fingers; she grips harder to Pete’s hand and lets out a high-pitched squeal.

Pete lets her lay back down next to the stuffed elephant Brendon gave her as part of her baby shower gift; it’s by far her favorite possession. Right after her parents, anyway. She reaches an unsteady hand out to grab its trunk and immediately sticks it into her mouth once it’s in range.

They watch her silently for a while. Pete doesn’t know who took whose hand first, but he just knows that he’s sitting on a spread out baby blanket with his and Patrick’s child, watching her chew on her favorite stuffed animal. Everything feels so surreal, Pete finds himself shaking his head.

“What?” Patrick asks, dragging his adoring eyes from their daughter and fixing them on Pete.

Pete stares at Jack a moment longer before meeting Patrick’s gaze. He leans in slowly and takes Patrick’s lips in his own. It’s been way too long since the two of them had had any time together—even with their parents around to watch Jack they hadn’t been able to be any kind of loud—and Pete can’t wait until next weekend when Patrick’s mom is going to watch her and they get a hotel. He’s going to make Patrick absolutely _scream_.

When they break apart Pete almost shivers at the thought, but he tramps down on it, seeing Jack move out of the corner of his eye. Patrick’s gaze flicks to her briefly before turning back to Pete. “What?” he asks again.

Pete smiles and bumps their noses together, pressing his forehead to Patrick’s. He almost finds himself saying ‘nothing’, but when he thinks about the fact that he has Patrick at his side and their fucking _child_ on the floor in front of him, he finds himself whispering out a solid, “ _Everything_.”


End file.
